From the Mist
by Super Chocolate Bear
Summary: The Doctor and Donna arrive on a very hot, very humid planet, where a lone research station has set up base. And there is something lurking down below...
1. Heat

-1Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**From the Mist**_

_**Chapter One: Heat**_

Donna was missing. It had taken the Doctor a few minutes to figure out exactly what it was that was missing, and after some rifling around in his pockets and checking that everything was where it should be on the TARDIS control panel, it suddenly occurred to him that it was rather quiet. And Donna Noble was many, _many _things. But quiet? Not really one of them. Of course, it wasn't that he was complaining that she made noise; he rather needed it most of the time. There wasn't anything quite as stunningly lonely as the steady thrumming of the TARDIS by itself, with no-one there to break the silence except for him.

Lonely was the word that perfectly described it, but he never brought himself to say it out loud. If there was something else that he didn't particularly enjoy, it was being pitied. And he had been on the receiving end of pity looks before, mostly from female travelling companions. Susan in particular had always been quite adept at hitting him with pity looks, usually after he had done or said something to deliberately offend or drive away friends and allies. And considering how curmudgeonly he was when he was younger, those looks had irritated him far more then than they did now.

"Donna?" he whined, making his way to the stairs at the back. No reply. He frowned, making the glasses on his face shift. With an irritable swipe he removed them, slipping them in his jacket pocket for later.

"You there? Or… anywhere in general?"

Still nothing. With a sigh and a rather dramatic roll of his eyes, the Doctor started making his way down, letting the TARDIS tend to its' own business as he ventured forth. This wouldn't be the first time she had wandered off to find the kitchen and ended up getting lost. One time the Doctor had found her in the Zero Room, stuck floating weightlessly in the middle. She had been there for an hour or so.

It wasn't _his _fault there was a fascinating nebula outside at the time. Otherwise he would have noticed her absence sooner. Besides, she had been half asleep when he found her (the Zero Room had that effect on people), so she shouldn't have been _that _annoyed with him.

Having made his way downstairs, the Doctor took to popping his head into each room down the golden corridor stretching out in front of him. It would occasionally take him by surprise, the coral theme of the TARDIS. Some days he expected to open the doors and find the sterile white that all Time Lords _so_ approved of waiting for him. But then he would just smile and get to work. Where was the fun in going with what everyone else approved of?

He found one door slightly ajar, light seeping through from inside. What looked like smoke wafted through, but any panic creeping into the Doctor vanished when he realised it was steam. The Doctor stepped through, and forced himself to stop at the door, hand still gripping the doorknob as he watched what was happening inside.

Donna Noble, with an iPod… dancing her socks of while she boiled up the kettle. And, to top it all off, her eyes were closed as she quietly sang along to something the Doctor had never heard in his life. And didn't really want to, considering some of the lyrics seemed pretty senseless.

Her eyes drifted open for a brief second when she whirled around, catching a glimpse of him stood in the doorway. She stopped in mid-twirl, stumbling across the kitchen and into a rack of pots and pans on the wall. With as much dignity as she could muster after such an incident, she straightened up, brushing imaginary dirt from her dress and jeans.

"Yes?" she asked, ripping the white headphones from her ears.

He wanted to laugh. He really, honestly, truly did. He wanted to laugh to the point where it was hurting his face _not _to. But still, through some miracle that he could only put down to Time Lord genetics, he managed to keep his face relatively straight.

"Um…"

Pinching his tongue between his teeth, the Doctor considered what he could really say about the display that had just been before him.

"…three sugars. Please."

The 'please' almost tipped him over the precipice of his self-control, and so he quickly retreated from the area and walked - as calmly and yet as quickly as he could - to the TARDIS control room.

And there, not knowing if he was safe from his companion's wrath but not really caring, the Doctor laughed harder than he had done in some time. Still chuckling away like a demented clown, he rounded the control panel, checking different readouts and adjusting random settings as he went. By he time he had circled the entire thing, Donna was stood at the top of the stairs with two mugs in front of her. The grin didn't leave his face. It honestly couldn't. Despite his best efforts, it just stayed there, shining in his companion's face like a torch.

"Ooo, tea. Thank you."

They both stood in silence for a moment while the Doctor sipped, keeping the mug in front of his too-smug-for-words grin so as not to incense the slightly flushed woman standing in front of him.

"You not… going to drink your tea?" he asked, keeping the mug in front of his mouth.

Donna seemed to consider her words with great care before replying. "I'm going to let you have this one."

"Sorry?"

"I'm going. To let you. Have. This one."

"Still not following, sorry."

"I mean-!" She caught herself in mid-shout, and calmed herself with a deep breath. "I mean, I'm going to let you do your little dance around the TARDIS, laughing your head off and making fun of me. Because I did it when you ate that fruit you thought was a banana and then-"

The Doctor's smile was gone, and the mug dropped from in front of his mouth. "Oh, now hang on, don't bring that up. It only lasted for a few days."

"Doctor, you were _purple. _Bleedin' purple! And it was _four_ days."

"Yeah, a few."

"No, a few means three."

"A few can mean four as well. 'Few' isn't a set number."

Although he _was _beginning to think that 'few' sounded funny when you said it too much.

"Look, never mind. Just… have your fun and then we can get on with our lives. All right?" she finished, moving her head from side to side as she pronounced the 'T' in 'right' far too harshly.

For a few moments, the Doctor was silent, only the TARDIS engines providing any noise. Then the grin wormed onto his face.

"You _were _dancing very enthusiastically."

"Yeah, all right…"

"_And _you were singing with your eyes closed. Couldn't _believe _that."

"Right, yeah…"

"And the lyrics!"

"Ay. Nothing wrong with a bit of Girls Aloud."

"Well, I-" The Doctor stopped himself when he realised that he had no idea who (or what) Girls Aloud was. So he didn't really have any cause to complain about his music. He'd have to try it and see if he liked it.

With a dull thud, the TARDIS suddenly landed, the jolt making both the Doctor and Donna stumble a little, carefully cradling their cups of tea to prevent any spillages.

"What was that?"

The Doctor raced to the control panel (well, raced as fast as he _could _with a cup of scalding hot tea in hand), swivelling the monitor around to him.

"We've landed," he mused lightly, the words almost a murmur.

"Can we even do that? You know, without you in control?"

He frowned, slipping his glasses from his pocket and putting them on. There was something he was forgetting, something-

"THE COUNTDOWN!"

Donna leapt almost completely out of her skin, tea spilling down herself and onto the latticework floor below. Deathly silence permeated between them as they both stared at the spot on her dress where the tea had made contact. Slowly, Donna brought her gaze up to meet his.

"I'm going to get changed… and you will never make fun of the dancing thing again."

The Doctor nodded. "Sounds fair."

"Thought it would." She sighed. "So go on then. What did you mean, 'countdown'?"

"Well, after we left Oomplock-"

"The planet of the apes, you mean."

"No," he admonished. "They're nothing to do with humans."

"They had a flipping statue of liberty! With the face of a monkey!"

"Yes, but that was just because of the Galactuns that subjected them to-" he shook his head vehemently. "Look, they're nothing to do with Earth. Anyway!"

He thrust an authoritative finger into the air. "After we got back in the TARDIS, I set up a countdown to take us to another random location in a day's time."

"A day? It's barely been a few hours."

"Well, when you say a _few-_"

"Don't start again. But it hasn't been a day, I know that much."

"A Kallafrax day."

Donna rolled her eyes. "Oh, well, a _Kallafrax _day…"

He grinned at her, taking another sip of his tea. "Well, off you go then. Sooner you're changed, sooner we can-"

His words escaped him when the TARDIS lurched violently to the side, sending Donna tumbling backwards and the Doctor forwards until they both ended up on the leather chairs, clutching onto them for dear life. Their mugs of tea had since been dropped and hurled to the other side of the control room, their contents spread across the floor and the walls. Donna looked around the room frantically.

"What the hell was that?"

The Doctor swung his body forward and pulled himself up to the control panel. With a mighty tug he brought the monitor around.

"The TARDIS must have landed on some unstable ground."

"You said to me before that it couldn't do that. Sensors or something, that's what you said."

"I know, but the ground must have changed since we landed." He scowled. "Where are we?"

With another thundering quake, the TARDIS shook forward, straightening the room out. He grinned.

"Well, that's straightened it out. Shall we head out?"

A certain skip in his step, the Doctor bounded over to the support strut beside the door, scooping up his coat and wrapping it around him. His hand on the door, he stopped and looked back to Donna.

"Coming?"

She pointed to the monitor. "I thought the ground was unstable. That's what you said."

"Well, yeah, that's what I _said_. But now it's saying we're stable, so…"

"And you expect me to go out with tea all down my front?"

The Doctor took a breath, then thought for a moment. "Ah. Yes, good point."

A few minutes later (although he was sure she took ten minutes longer than she _really _needed to) Donna was ready with a fresh shirt and jacket. Grinning inanely, the Doctor opened the door wide for her, and they stepped out into the world beyond. Donna's gasp clued him into something strange before he took his first step out of the TARDIS.

"Bloody hell, it's hot out here!"

The Doctor nodded, grimacing at the way his glasses were steaming up. He removed them and put them away.

"Humid," he mused, looking around the barren landscape.

"It's like a desert," Donna said, removing her jacket and tossing it back into the TARDIS.

He couldn't agree more. In all directions it was cracked, sandy ground, stretching out as far as the eye could see to some distant mountains. The orange-red hue of the ground gave a certain hellish motif that made the Doctor wary, but nothing too bad. If his Doctor sense was _really _tingling they would have been back in the TARDIS by now.

"It _looks_ like a desert," the Doctor said, taking in the landscape, "but the air's so… moist. It's more like a sauna or steam room. How does that work…?"

Donna, meanwhile, had wandered on ahead and turned around to face him. Shielding her eyes from the sun above, her gaze travelled up past his head and over the TARDIS, eventually settling on something behind them both.

"All right then," she said, nodding at it, "what's that all about?"

Hands in pockets, the Doctor followed her eye line until he had to walk around the TARDIS to see. A massive white complex rivalling any human skyscraper towered above them, four long tunnels sprouting out from the cylindrical centre. At the end of each tunnel lay a similar yet smaller cylinder, wedged firmly into the ground. The ground looked strained where the complex had managed to attach itself, painful cracks jutting out in every direction. It looked like it would collapse at any time.

The sunlight reflected harshly against the pure white of the complex, and the Doctor squinted as he studied it. He didn't recognise it, although it looked vaguely human in design. Shrugging off his coat, he turned back to the TARDIS and tossed it inside, landing with perfect precision on the support strut. The Doctor strode out into the sun, hands wedged in pockets as he walked to Donna.

Grinning, he hooked out his arm. "Shall we see who's in?"

She smiled. "Let's go and ring that doorbell, spaceman."

They jauntily made their way the hundred metres or so to the closest cylinder, being careful not to slip in any of the larger cracks. In fairness, they didn't seem anywhere near as severe up close, but the Doctor didn't fancy losing a foot in some unfortunate wedge situation. A _hand_, maybe. He had a replacement on standby, after all. Although he would look weird if he lost his left hand, because then he would have two right hands… he'd never be able to hold cards properly again. Not that he held cards that much anyway. But if he ever wanted to-

A loud clang of an alarm made the Doctor blink and look up to the source. Sirens flashed on the underbellies of the tunnels, and Donna pointed to the silhouettes that ran along the misted windows of the tunnels.

"Well, they look human. That's a good start, right?"

The Doctor sighed. "Yeah, but then they have all these questions, because you humans aren't half inquisitive things."

Donna looked at him. "Isn't that a good thing?"

He smiled a 100 watt smile. "Actually, yeah."

A few moments later, the alarms silenced abruptly. Above their heads, a metal door jutted outwards from the surface of the cylinder a few times before finally bursting open, the man inside almost falling out onto the ground before someone grabbed the waist of his jumpsuit and yanked him back in. The Doctor's smile remained as he marvelled over the comedy duo that was already making itself known to him. A tired, petite woman with greying blonde hair peered out of the door, scowling at them irritably.

"Wh… How-? What the hell are you doing there?"

Donna waved cheerily, and the Doctor followed suit.

"Just thought we'd go for a walk," she announced.

The Doctor nodded. "Yep. Looked out of the window today and thought-"

"-lovely day for a walk!"

Partners in crime, the two gave each other a little look before returning their attention to the flabbergasted woman above them.

"But… how are you even down there? The atmospheric turbulence…"

"Yeah, but we've got a box," Donna replied, nodding back from where they came.

"A box?"

"Police box, in fact," the Doctor added. "Atmospheric turbulence's got nothing on the fuzz!"

Her demeanour changed instantly, mostly her back; it stiffened as though someone had run some ice down her back.

"You're with the police?"

Before replying, the Time Lord looked at his companion. Could they pass for police? He shrugged.

"Yeah, why not?"

"I'm going to need some identification."

Removing her arm from where it was looped around his, Donna stepped forward, hands firmly planted on hips. "What, from down here?"

Though the Doctor had thought it impossible, the woman's back stiffened yet more. "Well, no. Of course not."

Donna shook her head and looked back to the Doctor, talking far too loudly as she went. "You'd think they'd treat a police inspection with more respect…"

"You'd think," the Doctor agreed with equal volume, deciding on a spur of the moment that he would be playing good cop in this little improvisation. Since he always ended up being bad cop in the real situations, he thought he had earned the right to be the good cop in make-believe.

As transparent as the Doctor thought they were, the woman above seemed to buy it, and stepped back inside. A few moments later, the door slammed shut by itself.

The Doctor and Donna looked at each other. He took breath, was about to speak, but then stopped himself.

He shrugged. "Suppose they just _really _don't like the police?"

Several more metallic clangs echoed out from the construct in front of them, and they took several cautious steps back, the Doctor's hand out in front of him in a mostly futile gesture. It always made him feel better, though. His open palm against the world. It could defeat anything, that hand.

A rectangular metal platform slowly began making its' way out of the cylinder at ground level. It continued going until it was a few metres out. Another started moving just above it, coming to a stop a quarter of a metre short of the bottom platform. This continued until there was a neat stairway leading up to the door.

Impressed, Donna smiled at the Doctor. "I would have been satisfied with a rope ladder."

With that, she strode up the stairs with all the confidence that the Doctor expected of her. His smile completely back (at least before he had to become John Smith, Doctor of Intergalactic Law Enforcement), he thrust his hands in pockets and wandered up until he was inside. The cool blue of the walls inside soothed his eyes somewhat as he entered. As his feet planted themselves firmly inside the building, the door slammed violently shut behind him, the echoing clang making his ears ring.

Unseen hydraulics banged and hissed from within the walls as the Doctor looked around the room. Circular, but not really big enough to encompass the five of them that comfortably. A doorway on his left was open, revealing the tunnel beyond. A nudge in the ribs brought his attention back to the real world, and he looked first to Donna, and then to the woman she was pointing to.

The tired woman sighed and stuck out her hand expectantly.

"Identification."

The Doctor stared at her blankly for a second. "Oh! Yes. Of course, yes." He whipped the psychic paper out of his jacket and into her face.

"There! You see? The Doctor and Donna Noble, Intergalactic Law Enforcement."

She cocked a sceptical eyebrow in his direction, while the man who had opened the door earlier looked idly around the room, hands in pockets. It always made the Doctor curious when people weren't interested in him. That sounded incredibly vain, but it was a fact that a person suddenly appearing in the middle of nowhere from a blue box usually attracted attention. Anyone who didn't pay attention to it was either stupid or had seen it all before. As it was, this man could be either.

"The Doctor," the woman said, the statement sounding nowhere near a question.

Her attention was no longer on the psychic paper, so he slipped it away.

"And… Donna," he said, nodding to his companion.

The woman ignored her. Donna didn't seem pleased.

"But it said your name was John Smith."

"Well, yeah, but most people just call me the Doctor. Well, they call me 'Doctor'. 'The Doctor' doesn't fit well into sentences. 'How are you today, the Doctor?'. See? Just doesn't work."

The man was staring at him now, frowning incredulously like he didn't know what the hell the Doctor had just said. He wondered if the TARDIS' translation circuit was working properly.

Their interrogator continued on. "And what exactly are you a doctor of?"

"Well… everything, really."

She smiled, and the condescending manner of it made the Doctor's jovial attitude feel that little bit more forced.

"You can't be a Doctor of everything."

"Maybe you can't, but I can."

The smile froze. "And why's that?"

He thought about it for a moment. "I'm brilliant."

Donna nodded. "He is, that's true."

His grin widened. "See? I've got references."

"And you," she said, moving onto Donna without missing a beat, "what exactly is your rank? It didn't say on the identification."

The Doctor slid a few feet away from conversation, knowing all too well what that kind of tone would get from Donna Noble.

As it was, Donna just smiled sweetly. "I'm sorry, what was your name?"

Her back straightened. "Melissa Tharsis."

"Well, Mel - can I call you Mel, darling? Of course I can - how about you stop asking us stupid questions, and go and make us a cup of tea?"

The good Miss Tharsis scowled. "A _what._"

Donna rolled her eyes dramatically, somehow using the rolling gesture to get even further into Tharsis' face. The voice remained as sickly sweet as before. "Tea? Cup of? Leaves in a bag that you put hot water through and get a nice drink? Ringing any bells in that tiny little head of yours, darling?"

"I know what tea is."

"Then what're you standing around here for? _Get to work!"_ Her voice went up about a hundred decibels, making even the man in the jumpsuit flinch.

Lovely blonde Melissa, at a certain lack for words, simply scowled and stormed out of the room, her shoes clacking noisily against the metal floor as she went.

The man smiled. "Thank you for that."

And with that, he was gone as well, although at a far more lethargic pace.

"Are you coming? The boss is going to want to meet you."

The pair were silent for a moment, and simply looked to each other.

"The boss?" Donna asked.

"The boss!" he agreed, pointing a grand finger to the tunnel.

As smiley as he was while they strode along with all the confidence of Intergalactic Law Enforcement Agents, the Doctor couldn't stop the uneasiness tingling down the back of his neck. Almost as though something was watching… waiting… an ancient, primordial power…

Or it could have been the air conditioning. It was hard to tell.

--

(A/N: All reviews encouraged and welcomed!)


	2. People

-1Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**From the Mist**_

_**Chapter Two: People**_

Something about this place irritated Donna. It could have been the far too bright white lights, the slick, polished sheen on, well, everything… or it could have been the snooty little madam that had greeted them at the door. Not that Donna was someone who quickly judged others. No, she was all about taking time to get to know people. Unless, obviously, they were pains in the arse.

Which Melissa Tharsis definitely was. She was sure those high heels weren't right for somewhere like this. She had already seen two other big men in mucky jumpsuits that made them look like mechanics…

Donna took a moment to remove _that _train of thought from her head, and looked to the Doctor. Although he seemed rather relaxed, she could see dark eyes taking in every detail as they walked. She wondered when it was that she started picking up his little nuances and subtleties. Probably when she started realising that 'I'm fine' meant 'I'm not really fine, I actually need someone to help me'.

She tilted her head towards him. "Isn't it a little weird?"

"Hm?"

"What she's wearing?"

Little Miss Tharsis didn't seem to notice the comment, being too far ahead of them. The Doctor, meanwhile, was frowning at her.

"…right, thanks for the fashion critique."

Donna rolled her eyes in a manner she had found herself doing often around the Doctor. It was usually when he was trying to be condescending in his spaceman way when she was _actually _raising a good point.

"No, but… they're all in jumpsuits. All… dirty and big and strong-"

"Donna," the Doctor said quickly, snapping his fingers in front of her. "Bit of focus? Please?"

She blinked. "Right, sorry. My first boyfriend was a mechanic."

"Right…"

"I'm just _saying_," she groaned. "That's why I'm a bit distracted."

"Is this jumpsuit thing… going somewhere?"

"_Yes. _As I was _saying, _they're all in jumpsuits, but she's wearing a suit and high heels. Isn't that a bit weird?"

And, as usually happened, the Doctor seemed ready to make some other snappy retort when he finally realised that this temp from Chiswick was actually good for something.

"Good point. In fact…" He slowly turned 360 as he walked, inspecting the walls and the ceiling as he went. "…I'm not even sure what type of complex this _is_. Probably privately owned."

"Privately owned? Like a Virgin plane or something?"

He bobbed his head from side to side as he struggled for the right words. "Sort of. But more like… Richard Branson designing his own _type _of plane, and only using it for himself."

"Who's Richard Branson?"

"The… owner of Virgin."

"Oh. Really?"

The Doctor just stared. "Yeah."

Pushing aside how ignorant the Doctor made her feel (which he did more often than she would admit to him), she tried to move the conversation somewhere else.

"But if this thing's privately owned… why is it here? I'm not an expert, but it don't exactly look like Ibiza, you know what I mean?"

"_Another _good point," the Time Lord conceded, nodding. A gleam sparkled in his eye, and it had nothing to do with the luminescent lights above. "Looks like the Intergalactic Law Enforcement Agents are going to have some good questions."

"Are we doing good cop/bad cop? Oh! Can I be bad cop?"

"You _are _bad cop."

"Oi, watch it spaceman."

"No, really. I decided before we came in. You know. While… you were shouting at Melissa."

She smiled. "Oh, so it's _Melissa_?"

"Yeah, first names make everything more comfy." He cocked his head up and raised his voice. "Isn't that right, Melissa?"

They had just reached a door on the curving left-hand wall of the corridor when Melissa whirled impressively on her high heels to glare at him.

"_You_ can call me Miss Tharsis."

"Miss," Donna observed. "No surprise there, then."

The glare intensified to become almost radioactive. As if on cue, the door beside them slid open compliantly, revealing the elevator beyond.

"Please, step inside," Melissa insisted through clenched teeth.

The two of them did so, and she walked in after them, pressing a button in the middle of the panel. The elevator hummed elegantly as they rose, the noise the only indication that they were moving at all.

"This boss of yours," the Doctor asked, bringing his gaze down from something fascinating on the ceiling. "Does he own this ship?"

"My employer doesn't generally come on these kinds of expeditions."

"Well, that's _nice,_ but it doesn't really answer my question, does it, Melissa?"

"Miss Tharsis."

"That's what I said. Anyway-" he began again, taking the time to share a knowing smile with Donna. It seemed to be something they both took delight in, deflating uptight egos and the like. One of the many things that made them such fast friends.

"-does that mean your boss is on board? Does he own the ship?"

Mel (Donna reckoned she would call her Mel from now own, just for the hell of it) sighed and turned to face them, having so far been content to stare into the closed elevator doors.

"No, my employer is not on board, and yes, he owns the ship."

"And when you say 'these kinds of expeditions'-"

"I'm afraid you'll have to speak to Commander Venn before I can tell you anything." The miniature, tight little smirk that graced her features made Donna want to do something quick and violent. Maybe a fast poke in the eye would make her feel better. Mel rotated back around to face the doors as they opened with a heavenly ping. The little mistress trotted out without even checking if they were following, heading for a door at the other end of the corridor.

The Doctor, a little bemused at being cut off, just stared at her for a few moments before catching his words again.

"Well. Let's do that then."

As she often did with these situations, Donna let him lead the way, but only by the smallest of margins. She didn't want him thinking he was in charge or anything. They followed along until Mel reached the door and pressed a control panel beside it.

After a silence filled with buzzing static, the panel crackled. _"Yes?" _The voice was deep and had an American twang to it.

"There are some people here to see you, Commander."

"…_What people?"_

Mel looked from the small intercom to them, eyeing them irritably. "They say they're with the I.L.E.A."

"_Do they have ID?"_

"Yes."

"_And?"_

Donna frowned. Shouldn't that be enough?

"It seems genuine."

Silence on the other end. Donna looked to the Doctor, who had that infuriatingly blank look on his face that meant he was thinking about something long and hard. Which was usually followed by explosions, monsters and/or lots of running. One advantage was that she had never been physically fitter in her life. The downside was that she was usually running _for _her life, instead of just trying to make herself more active. After about the first month of hanging around with the Time Lord, she had understood why he was so skinny.

"_Let them in."_

Mel seemed a little surprised by this answer, and blinked before regaining her stony composure. "Commander Venn will see you now."

Donna smiled sweetly. "We heard, thanks."

She could feel the Doctor's proud smirk as he forged ahead, not waiting for Mel to open the door for them. Mel didn't seem too pleased with the Doctor's forwardness, but she didn't try to stop him as he jabbed a button on the control panel that opened the door. Seemed even bitchy P.A's knew when the Doctor shouldn't be disturbed.

With her smile increasing in wattage by about a hundred, Donna strode past, giving Mel a little wave as she went.

"Tata."

The office was smaller than she would have expected from a building so big. If it was a building. The way the Doctor had been talking, it was more like it was a spaceship.

Cleaned, polished white seemed the standard for this place, and the Commander's office was no exception. The temp in her found the lack of filing cabinets and shelves strange, as well as the fact that the man's desk was almost completely blank except for a small grey slit just in front of him. Obviously Commander Venn wasn't a busy man.

He looked just as closed off as lovely old Mel, the taught, stressed lines on his face making him look older than he probably was. His short, trimmed black hair made him look older still, but not in a way that gave the impression of frailty or weakness. No, he just seemed more experienced.

Of course, Donna was stood next to a man who looked like he was in his mid-thirties but had lived for almost a thousand years. And most of those years were there for all to see, tucked away in his eyes. She wondered if any of his other travelling companions noticed these things about him, and made a mental note to ask him later. If she wasn't distracted by explosions, monsters and/or lost of running, that is. Then she might forget.

Another man stood in the corner of the room was watching them eagerly. It made Donna shudder a little, the deep blackness of his eyes as he observed like an animal. He was wearing one of the same grey jumpsuits the other men had been wearing, except this one was immaculate. Not a stain on it. His hands were tucked neatly behind his back, his posture stiff and ever-so-slightly strange to look at. It was like he literally had a pole stuffed up there.

The Doctor seemed to have taken all this in within the space of a millisecond, because he was instantly upon the good Commander, flashing his psychic paper as he went.

"Intergalactic Law Enforcement Agency. I'm the Doctor, this is Donna Noble."

Venn gestured to the chairs opposite his desk, and they both took their time sitting. The Doctor seemed a little distracted by the man in the corner, with his slicked back hair and unending gaze. Donna wasn't particularly finding him easy to ignore, either.

The chairs were doing their best to distract her, though. What were they made of, planks of wood? It was like sitting against a wall.

The Doctor had little trouble getting comfy, however, leaning back in the chair as though this were _his _office.

"So," Venn began, leaning back similarly and lacing his fingers together. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Donna finally managed to shift herself into a position she found comfortable. Unfortunately, she suddenly found that she was facing the man in the corner with the stalker eyes. She tried to focus on Venn's small ears instead.

The Doctor wrinkled up his face as he thought on the matter. "Oh, we were just passing, really. Had a look down on the planet and thought it might be nice to pop in."

"And how exactly did you get through the atmospheric turbulence? We didn't detect any kind of energy signatures or shielding being activated."

"Maybe your sensors aren't as good as you thought."

"I doubt that."

"Really?"

"Yes. _Really."_

The emphasis on the word indicated there was no more room for discussion down that avenue. So the Doctor tried a different one.

"Begs the question though, doesn't it?" he asked, looking over to Donna. She just nodded conspiratorially, not at all sure where he was going with this. So much for being bad cop.

Venn's face twitched, although almost unnoticeably. "What question?"

"Well, if it's such a hard time getting through the atmosphere-"

"It is."

"-don't interrupt, it's rude- then that would mean you had a largely, no, hugely, no, tremendously, no, _enormously _good reason for getting down here." The Doctor stopped talking, seemingly finished.

Venn opened his mouth, only for the Doctor to burst into life again.

"And! This is a privately owned craft, so whatever _it_ is that you're looking for, it's probably worth quite a bit of money." He leant forward in his chair, looking Venn straight in the eye. "Or is it just for fun?"

Silence hung in the air. A genuine silence, as well. There was no ambience, which, after spending so much time in the humming TARDIS control room, was quite a strange experience for Donna. She had been expecting to hear some kind of generator or breeze from the air-conditioning. But no, just complete silence.

The unwavering stare of the man in the corner didn't help either, who was watching the Doctor with such intensity it was a wonder his eyes didn't pop out of his head.

Venn, meanwhile, hadn't moved from his relaxed position in his chair, fingers locked together far tighter than they had been before. Donna could almost see the whites of his knuckles pushing through.

"Ore."

Donna frowned. "'Or'? 'Or' what?"

The commander moved his hazel eyes to look at her, but not his head. "Ore. More specifically, Krellian Ore."

The Doctor frowned and muttered to himself. "Krellian Ore… Krell! Are we on Krell? That's brilliant!" He turned to Donna, ready to divulge some exciting bit of information. Although with the Doctor that could range from monsters to a new flavour of jelly.

"I-"

He noticed Venn's simultaneously confused and irritated look and promptly cleared his throat.

"I mean… of course we're on Krell. That's why we're here. Policemen, that's us." The Doctor meekly waved a fist in the air. "Hooray."

Venn's face twitched again. "Do you two even _work _for the I.L.E.A?"

Ready to defensively get in the good commander's face, Donna was cut off by the Doctor springing to his feet, hands lodged firmly in his pockets.

"I think a more prudent question - funny word, prudent, almost like prude, which I always thought sounded more like a fruit than a description - anyway," he muttered, shaking is head. "Who. Is. This?"

The bouncy Time Lord sidled over to the incredibly still man in the corner, putting a polite amount of distance between them.

"And why has he been staring at me like I'm the best thing since sliced bread? I mean, I _am _the best thing since sliced bread, let's face it, doesn't get more brilliant than me, but still," he brought out his glasses and slipped them on, moving his face around in front of the man like he were an exhibit at an art gallery, "It's a bit weird."

Grinning, he looked to Venn. "And take it from me, for me to say that… that makes it _very _weird."

Donna just nodded her agreement, content to let the Doctor work his magic. When he went off on one like this it usually meant he was on to something serious. And, considering he hadn't descended into spaceman talk, she was happy to sit and watch. But as soon as he said anything resembling 'interspatial' or 'flux' or 'temporal', she would happily give him a clip round the ear.

"He's an expert," the Commander said, and even Donna scoffed at that weak excuse.

The Doctor didn't even look at Venn, instead focusing even closer on his new 'project'. "In what? Hm? What's your field?"

The man didn't respond, although he did glance to Venn for guidance, the first sign he had shown of his stare faltering.

"Don't look at him, why would he know? Come on. Just between us boggle-eyed people," he said, widening his eyes accordingly.

For the longest time, he just stared at the Doctor impassively. Then he opened his mouth, but simply let it close again, as though it wasn't worth the effort.

"Sorry?" The Doctor asked, bending his ear down to the man's mouth. "What was that?"

"His name is Tamar," Venn announced, trying to sound tired and bored but hiding his caution badly. "He's an expert in plant life; there's some rare species underground where we're mining."

Once again, the Doctor's attention was returned to Venn. "Oh, you're _mining? _That would explain the men in jumpsuits. But still, you're a bit understaffed for someone trying to find Krellian Ore, aren't you? That stuff's very heavy, if I remember rightly. Pulled a shoulder once trying to lift a block the size of a football. Although I _was _a bit shorter then. And I _did _have an umbrella in one hand. I liked that umbrella. Kept me dry."

Venn opened his mouth to answer, only for the Doctor to interrupt him by returning his attention to Tamar.

"So then, Tamar, expert in plant life, eh? What's your favourite? The Camden Swirls of Pretoria Nine? Or maybe the Begonias from Mars' Second Authority? Very rare, those, aren't they? What do you think?"

Tamar didn't reply.

"Hello? Tamar?" He whistled and snapped his fingers in front of the man's face. Something in the clicking noise must have done something, because Tamar blinked once and suddenly lurched forward with his arm aiming for the Doctor's throat.

Faster than she had ever seen him move, the Doctor leaned back 'Matrix'-style, staying just out of reach of the tightly clenched fingers. Donna was on her feet instantly, rushing to his side and wrapping a protective hand around his arm. It was only then she realised that Tamar wasn't moving. The Doctor stepped back, gently brushing her hand from his sleeve and giving her a reassuring look.

"Well," he observed, laughing to Venn, "that's interesting, isn't it?"

The Commander didn't say anything, although he was gripping the armrests of his chair rather tightly now.

"He's frozen," Donna said dumbly, moving her head from side to side and seeing that Tamar's eyes didn't follow her. His face, like his body, was locked in one position; a feral snarl exposing some teeth that were just that little bit too pointy for a human.

The Doctor nodded. "Metabolastasis field. If I'm right…" he suddenly squatted down and lifted the cuff of Tamar's trouser leg to reveal a metal bracelet wrapped around it just above the ankle. The shoes he wore reminded Donna of the kind of slippers/plimsolls inmates wore in those big prisons from films.

"Ah. Generator bracelet." Bouncing to his feet, the Doctor slipped his glasses off and put them back in his jacket. "Usually they're used for the more dangerous inmates at prison colonies; misbehave, they get a quick _zap _to teach them a lesson."

"Like dogs and those lemon spray things they put on their collars," Donna added, smiling at the analogy.

"Well, if the lemon spray went through their entire nervous system, then yeah. But _sometimes _they can be used in more interesting ways, like so." He waved down to the bracelet in a grand gesture.

"Complete stasis. Any kind of violent action, WHAM!" Both Donna and Venn flinched at the sudden exclamation. The Doctor didn't seem to notice. "Frozen until someone activates the safety trigger."

He looked to Venn, who rose from his chair to meet him. "What is it? Snap of the fingers? Clapping? The second verse of 'Don't Cry for me Argentina'?"

"I think you should leave."

The Doctor frowned. "Well that's not a very good safety trigger, is it? A bit bland, if we're honest."

Venn was obviously having no more of the Doctor's guff, and stormed forward the few steps between them until they were nose to nose.

"_You _are clearly not Law Enforcement Agents. I don't know who the hell you are, but this is a private mission on a private ship-"

"-on a dead planet-"

"-and you _will _leave. Now."

That same, pure silence hung between the Doctor and the Commander, neither moving an inch in their elongated staring contest.

Finally, the Doctor broke it off with an elaborate sigh and roll of the eyes. "Well, I never. That was bordering on rudeness, I must say. Come on, Donna."

For a moment she was going to object to the Doctor's quick surrender, but then thought better of it, settling for a disapproving glare to Commander Venn to show the Intergalactic Law Enforcement Agency was _not _happy with him (although she avoided looking at Tamar, _way _too freaky). With that done, she followed the Doctor out of the office, where lovely Mel was waiting for them.

The Doctor let the door close behind him before speaking. "So. Let's start the tour, shall we?"

The harsh woman in front of them tilted her head slightly, reminding Donna of a confused dog. "I'm sorry?"

"The tour. That's what Commander Venn said."

Mel looked at them both suspiciously, her eyes thinning accordingly. She reached for the intercom for Venn's office.

"Commander?"

"_What?"_

The harshness in his tone made even Donna flinch. She looked over to the Doctor, but he just had this 'I knew that was going to happen' look on his face. Mel, meanwhile, seemed rather taken aback by the outburst, and took a moment to compose herself before speaking again.

"I was just wondering about the two officers-"

"_Just… take care of them, all right? That's your job, Miss Tharsis."_

She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it. "Yes, Commander," she mumbled, and switched off the comm.

Now that they were out of the office, Donna could make out a distant thrumming coming from somewhere in the distance which filled the silence that permeated the air between them. Mel finally looked up to them, looking somewhat defeated.

"What would you like to see first, officers?"

The Doctor thought about it for a moment, rolling his eyes along the ceiling before bringing them down on Mel. "Well, since you're mining, I think that'd be a lovely place to start, don't you?"

Mel nodded and dumbly led them down the corridor with a mumbled 'this way'. They waited until she was far ahead of them enough for them to talk without being overheard.

"How'd you know that would happen?"

"What?"

"That Captain what's-his-name wouldn't tell her to kick us off the ship?"

He shrugged and started walking. "I didn't. But I _did _think that he wouldn't want too many people seeing Tamar."

"Why's that? Because he's like an ex-convict or something?"

"That," the Doctor said, pausing to take a breath before looking over at her warningly, "and he's not human."

Donna stopped walking for a moment to digest that information, but then realised that it didn't scare or unsettle her at all. She'd been seeing aliens for months now, why would that make a difference?

"Why would that be a problem? I mean, this is the future, right?"

The Doctor nodded. "I'd say… 53rd, 54th century?"

"This is after that thing with the Ood, right?"

"_Way _after."

"Then aren't aliens all over the place? Wouldn't people be used to it?"

"Yeah, they would. _That's_ what makes Tamar so odd."

She frowned at him as they turned a corner, following Mel down another long, white corridor. The thrumming was getting steadily louder as they walked.

Finally, Donna nodded in understanding. "Why would Skipper disguise him as a human?"

"Exactly," the Doctor agreed, although he didn't look particularly happy. "Which must mean there's a very nasty species lying underneath that weird stare."

"Got any ideas what it is?"

He thought on it for a moment, but then shook his head with a sigh. "There are so many races that can disguise themselves as humans, especially in this century. I'd need to find out more about him to narrow it down."

"Well, it looked like he was hissing at you when he froze."

"Narrows it down."

"And he didn't blink when he was staring."

"Narrows it down." They walked on in silence for a few more seconds, and the Doctor looked over at her. "Anything else?"

"…oily hair?"

"Weirdly enough, narrows it down."

Donna wracked her brains, but there wasn't much else that sprang to mind. It was then that she realised that Mel had stopped and had turned to face them, her back straighter than Donna would have thought possible for a human being, even with high heels on.

"This is the entrance to the mines."

It barely looked any different than the entrance to Venn's office, except the doors looked bigger and there were murky scuff marks where the miners had trodden muck in from the mines below.

"After you," the Doctor said amiably, waving a grand arm to the elevator.

Donna frowned. "Don't we need gasmasks or containment suits or something?"

"Nah, just Krellian Ore. Besides, I'd guess they'd have a ventilation system set up down there by now. Wouldn't you?"

Mel, who at this point seemed resigned to the fact she was escorting two lunatics around her home, just nodded wearily. The Doctor pressed a button beside the elevator, and the door slid open instantly. As they were stepping inside, the light tapping of echoing footsteps came from down the corridor. A young man looking no older than twenty (if that) bounded up the corridor, his tie flapping over his shoulder as he went.

"Miss Tharsis!"

The woman just sighed and turned to face him. "Yes, Allen?"

He came to a halt in front of her, holding out a rectangular metal square about the size and thickness of a notepad. A touch screen was on the front, all luminescent blues and turquoise. "You need to thumbprint this."

"What is it?" she asked wearily, looking it up and down.

"My timesheet."

"Oh, stop using such arcane terminology."

Donna's mouth hung open in a smile. "Are you a temp?"

Allen, looking rather confused by the two oddly dressed people in the room with them, just nodded breathlessly.

Her beaming smile grew. "What's your name?"

"Um…" he looked to Mel for approval, who by this point just waved her hand in the air uncaringly. He smiled politely and stuck his hand out.

"Robert Allen. I'm the file clerk."

"Donna Noble," she said, shaking his skinny hand. "God, you're as skinny as him." Donna hooked a thumb in the Doctor's direction.

Seeming ignorant of her criticism (he always did when it came to jibes about his physical appearance - except his clothes. Donna knew _never _to insult the clothes), the Doctor leant forward with an outstretched hand.

"I'm the Doctor, by the way."

"Nice to meet you."

Mel cleared her throat loudly. "Allen, you've got your payment, so could you please go and do some work?"

Sheepishly glancing between Donna, the Doctor and Mel, Allen tucked his head down somewhat. "Yes, Miss Tharsis. Sorry."

He took his timesheet and left. As they watched him go, Donna turned to Mel to say something. The entire base shook, and, not for the first time that day, Donna was sent tumbling across the room. A gangly arm latched onto her, stopping her from tumbling to the ground. She smiled gratefully to the Doctor as the shaking subsided.

"What the hell was that? Earthquake?"

Melissa was about to snottily correct her when the Doctor did it instead, albeit in a manner slightly more friendly.

"No, felt different." He turned to Melissa. "Did you land on anything unusual?"

"What do you take us for? Botanists?"

"Well, you've got an expert on board," Donna singsong-ed, and the Doctor nodded in agreement.

"That's right. Captain's got an expert on plant life in his office. For a _mining _operation. Mind explaining that?"

She stared at them like they were mad. "I can't answer that."

The doors to the elevator had since closed, so Melissa pushed the button again to open them up. The Doctor gave Donna a 'isn't that interesting?' look as he stepped inside. Donna couldn't contain the glare she was blasting at Mel.

"By the way. A bit harsh, don't you think?"

"What?"

"The way you treated Allen?"

Mel shrugged and pushed another button to take them down. "He's just a temp."

"Just. A _temp?"_

The Doctor, recognising a volcano about to go off, swiftly stepped between them. "Um… so, how far down are these mines?"

"_Just. A TEMP?"_

"Quite far down?"

"_JUST. A TEMP?"_

He groaned tiredly. "Please apologise before she hits someone." The Doctor thought for a moment. "Probably me."

--

(A/N: Thanks for the reviews folks! Keep them coming!)


	3. Working

-1Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**From the Mist**_

_**Chapter Three: Working**_

The whole 'insulting Donna Noble's way of life' died down surprisingly quickly, but the Doctor put that down to the earthquake that shook the entire shaft as they descended. Melissa was suitably tight-lipped the rest of the way down, oblivious to how close to death she had come.

And not from the earthquake, either.

The lift trundled about a little as it came to a slow stop, the gentle humming dying away as the doors opened. A surprisingly well lit tunnel lay beyond, supported by metal beams that ran along the sides and the roof of the caves. The top beams were a light source in themselves, casting their harsh white light on every rock and pebble around them. Melissa wordlessly led the way, struggling to look dignified and snooty while she wobbled helplessly on her high heels.

The Doctor and Donna exchanged amused smiles before they sauntered out after her. Not for the first time, the Doctor was glad he had left his long coat in the TARDIS; the heat down here was making it rather uncomfortable even for him. And Time Lords didn't really feel heat or cold. Well, they did, but only in the way that humans could recognise the colour blue; they acknowledged it but they weren't affected by it. On second thought, that troubled the Doctor a little bit. That meant that whatever this heat was, it was something that could affect his Time Lord physiology. Intriguing and frightening at the same time.

He looked over to Donna, and was reminded of wandering around in the volcano of Pompeii. She certainly looked hot enough, her forehead already glistening with a sheen of sweat. She looked to him irritably.

"You wouldn't happen to have a fan in one of those 'bigger-on-the-inside' pockets, would you?"

He thought for a moment, and rooted through his jacket. Unfortunately for Donna, he came up empty. "Sorry, left if in my other jacket."

"What, your blue one?"

"Think so. Might be the leather one, actually. I don't know. I've got so many jackets and coats. Especially long coats."

They walked in silence around the next bend, following the stumbling Melissa as she powered on down the long tunnel ahead of them. Donna did her best to stifle a groan at how far the tunnel went, but didn't do well. The Doctor smiled.

"You could always go back, you know."

"Not on your life. This is probably the best detox I've had in ages. Good for the pores." She frowned. "Why _is _it so hot down here?"

"Not sure," he admitted, raising a hand to the light fixtures above them. As expected, they wasted no energy on heat. "If anything, it should be a bit cooler, since there's no sunlight getting down here and the ventilated air is being pumped from the ship."

"The air from the ship is being pumped down here? Won't they run out?"

"Nah. They've probably got two air recycler tanks going full pelt. One for the ship, one for the mines. More than enough."

They were reaching the end of the dry, dusty tunnel, a sharp turn taking them left.

"So," Donna asked in her best faux-nonchalant voice, "what are you mining for, exactly?"

Melissa didn't bother turning around. "Didn't the Commander tell you?"

"I'd rather hear it from you."

"I'd rather not release any information that hasn't been cleared."

"But surely you don't want to be seen as being uncooperative?"

_That _did it. Melissa whirled around on her already unstable heel, stumbling a little to the side as she did so. "I…"

The PA looked from Donna to the Doctor, and back again. "We're mining for Krellian Ore."

Donna, clearly enjoying this, looked to the Doctor conspiratorially, and stood up on tiptoes to whisper in his ear.

"Agree with me, like I've told you something incriminating," she hissed, and the Doctor nodded gravely.

"Yes… interesting, that, isn't it?"

And with that, she gave Melissa a pointed stare. The PA didn't know where to look, and the Doctor had to seriously work hard to contain the grin. She settled for turning around with a mumbled 'this way' before setting off again.

The Doctor looked to Donna. "Blimey. I should let you be bad cop more often."

Smiling, she cocked her head. "Too right, spaceman."

She strutted on ahead, and the Doctor paused to grin before lightly hopping along after her. Just as he bounded up alongside his companion, they turned another corner, the loud music and the roar of machinery hailing their entry to the miners territory. The Doctor tried his best to ignore the unabashed lust in Donna's eyes as she watched the three men go about their work.

Well, maybe 'work' was too harsh a word.

Two of the men were sat on a crate on the right, one of them the man that had forced open the hatch when they first arrived. They were playing cards, which made the Doctor grin inanely. Humans. So little changes.

The third man was operating a large piece of machinery reminiscent of a jackhammer, although the Doctor couldn't place it from this distance. All he could see from where he stood was that a rather deadly red laser was blasting out of the tip, and making a rather loud roar as it did so. The worker had it aimed thoroughly in the middle of the wall, the device itself propped up on a stand for extended usage.

The man from earlier, shaved brown hair revealing the dirt smudges all over his head, did a double glance at the new people in the workplace. After the second look, he quickly slapped his team-mate on the arm and got to his feet. As he stood to attention he dusted down his hopelessly filthy jumpsuit. The gesture just made the Doctor like him more.

His comrades quickly followed suit, even the worker with the laser, who promptly switched it off and removed his blast visor. The Doctor tried not to think about how much it reminded him of the _S.S. Pentallion._ In fact, the heat in general was taking him back. Maybe that was why he was so on edge.

_Burn with me._

The Doctor had heard that voice, whispering in the back of his head for days after he and Martha had left. The voices weren't real, he knew that now, and he had known that then. But they had still haunted him. That heat sizzling his insides, burning him up.

A gentle elbow nudged his arm. He blinked and looked to Donna.

"You all right?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Fine. Mind was just somewhere else." Even though he knew it wouldn't work, he threw her a weak smile to dismiss the matter and looked to Melissa as she walked in front of the three workers.

The man in the middle dared a quick glance at her bum as she marched past. Both Donna and the Doctor smiled.

"These two are from the I.L.E.A. They've dropped down for an… _impromptu _inspection." She said 'impromptu' like it was a dirty word.

Which, to be fair, it was, at least on some planets.

The Doctor leaned forward, hands behind his back. "Hello. I'm the Doctor, this is Donna Noble."

She didn't say anything, so he nudged her. "Say hello, Donna."

"Hello, boys."

The trio all looked a little perturbed by the seductive nature of the statement. The man on the left scratched his thick brown hair and waved. "McKenzie."

The second man, murky blonde hair looking all the worse for having been drenched in mud and dirt for however long, offered a similar wave. "Hunter."

And finally, they were to the man that had greeted them at the gate, as it were. He just nodded. "Spade."

Both the Doctor and Donna ducked their heads a little. "I'm sorry?"

Looking like he had definitely heard this before, the man sighed and wedged his hands in his pockets. "Spade."

"You're name's _Spade?_" Donna asked, sounding far ruder then she meant to be, the Doctor was sure.

"Yep."

"And you're a miner?"

"Yep."

For a moment, they were both silent. Then, Donna turned to the Doctor and murmured so just he could hear. "What kind of parents call their son Spade? And then let him become a miner?"

He thought about it for a moment. "Human parents?"

"Good point."

As though nothing had happened, they returned to their 'inspection'.

"And what are you mining for, Mr Spade?"

He waved a dismissive hand. "It's just Spade. Not Mr Spade."

"So Spade's your first name?"

"Yeah."

"What's your second name? Digger?" She snorted a laugh and looked to the Doctor.

He tried not to frown too much. "No… don't do that. Just, no… no."

Silence filled the caves while Donna tried not to look too embarrassed, instead sweeping something from her trouser leg.

"…anyway," Spade began, looking back to his colleagues to no doubt shoot them a 'what the hell was that about?' look. "We're mining for Krellian Ore."

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up and his bottom lip jutted out in front of him as he nodded. He leaned towards Donna and murmured in her ear.

"Well, the story checks out… RIGHT!" He yelled, knowing he was making Donna jump but enjoying himself far too much to apologise, "let's see you get to work then."

Looking unsure of themselves, the three men shuffled about on their feet and looked at each other. Finally, it was McKenzie who spoke up.

"Uh… what?"

"Work? You? Do it? Go back to your… laser thing. Although," he squinted, inspecting the device from afar, "does that even need three people to operate it?"

Spade shrugged. "How else are we supposed to get away from-" his gaze blinked to Mel, and he quickly changed his tune. "-uh… people?"

"And," McKenzie cut in, "health and safety. That's the main reason."

The workers chorused their agreement, nodding like one of those funny dogs twenty-first century humans put in the back windows of their cars.

Fighting the grin, the Doctor waved them away. "Off you go, then. Do a hard day's night, work like a dog."

Unwitting of the musical reference, the workers slowly shuffled over to the laser, obviously unsure of how they could make three of them look useful on one laser. The Doctor, meanwhile, was nudging Donna's arm.

"Get it? Hard day's night?"

She gave him a blank look.

"Working… like a dog?"

Still nothing.

"The Beatles? John, Paul and Ringo… no?"

Donna blinked.

"Oh, never mind…"

As they watched the miners work, the Doctor and Donna sidled over to the crate upon which they had been playing cards. Bored with what was essentially an unmoving beam of light, the Doctor idly watched Donna inspect cards of the 53rd century before shuffling them rather impressively and placing them in the corner. The Doctor glanced back to the men working and frowned. He rubbed his eyes, and found that didn't make the situation any better. Worse, if anything.

"What's up with you? Got something in your eye?"

He shook his head. "No… well, maybe. That wall's a little bit blurry."

"Which one?"

"The one they're blasting."

"Oh." Donna was silent for a moment. "'Cos if it _was _something in your eye, you just pull your eyelid to the side and blink a few times, that'll clear it-"

"Donna, I've been travelling in space and time for nine hundred years. I _think _I know how to get something out of my eye."

"All right, sorry, spaceman…"

They went back to watching the men work and Melissa scowl at them from across the cave. When he was sure Donna wasn't looking, he tried pulling his eyelid to the side and blinking. It didn't work. He looked to Donna again, his frown deepening.

"You seriously can't see that?"

"See what?"

"How blurry that wall is?"

She gave the offending wall a thorough inspection from where she was sitting. "Seems fine to me. Maybe you should put on your glasses."

"But I don't _need_ glasses."

"Well, obviously you do, 'cos-"

"No, I mean… Time Lords don't _need_ visual aides. Physical imperfections like that just… don't happen."

"Then what's going on then?"

The Doctor scratched one of his sideburns contemplatively. "Not sure…" He tilted his head up and looked to Melissa, who had since decided that keeping an eye on their guests was pointless and was working diligently on her PDA.

"Miss Tharsis?"

Somewhat surprised that he had used her proper title, the woman blinked and moved her head only slightly to allow her to look up at him.

"Yes?" she said, unsurely.

"That wall," he said, nodding to where the miners were now blasting away, "does it look okay to you?"

And now she was suspicious. That wrinkle that now seemed so familiar to him on humans spread across her brow, and she looked to the wall only briefly before glaring back at him.

"Why?"

"Oi. Don't get cheeky," Donna demanded. "He called you Miss Tharsis."

Although that didn't really mean much since the Doctor only used the title to get something out of her. Still, Melissa didn't seem to know that, and seemed to be taking his question a bit more seriously.

"It looks fine to me. Just the-" she did a double take, her firmly crossed arms loosening as she stood up off the wall, "-steam…"

Both the Doctor and Donna followed her troubled gaze until they were all looking at the three workers. Aside from the billowing dust from the drilling laser, there did indeed seem to be steam pelting out, the hissing mixing with the vibrating hum of the laser to fill the once quiet caverns with, well… a _lot _of noise.

The three miners looked back to Melissa for directions, who promptly looked to the Doctor. His eyes went wide, marvelling for a brief moment at how truly stupid humans could be. Then he started waving his arms.

"Get out of there, move, move, move!"

And _still_, they paused, unsure of what to do. Then the wall exploded with steam, the force of the blast sending McKenzie, who had been stood at the front of the laser, tumbling back, knocking over Spade and Hunter like skittles.

Donna dove in fearlessly, and as he ran after her, the Doctor couldn't help but admire her courage. Not that he would expect anything less from her.

Hunter was already on his feet and yanking Spade to his, leaving the Doctor and Donna to tend to hopefully just unconscious McKenzie. Latching on to his jumpsuit, the Doctor and Donna dragged him away from the steadily growing cloud. The steady hum of the laser continued, the red light giving the steam a hellish, haunting glow. The Time Lord handed the unconscious form to Donna, making sure she had a good enough grip to carry him by herself. Much to their collective surprise, the dainty hands of Melissa Tharsis came into view, wrapping her arm around McKenzie's back and letting his arm drape over her shoulder. Donna copied the manoeuvre, and they were away.

When the Doctor didn't follow, he could practically feel the look Donna was giving him, but ignored it. Pulling out his sonic screwdriver, he twisted the setting dial on the bottom a few times before finding the electrical damper. Aiming it in the vague direction were the laser had once been, the Doctor activated it, the steady whirring completely lost in the din steadily encroaching on him.

Suddenly, the vibrations of the laser were gone, as was the red glow of the steam. With one final twist of the screwdriver, the Doctor opened up the rather miniscule sample chamber, the screwdriver working happily as it sucked in the smallest amount of steam it possibly could.

"Doctor! What the hell are you doing?"

Nodding absently, the Doctor tucked the screwdriver away and turned, going from 'curious scientist' into 'running adventurer' in less than a second. It was a skill few Time Lords possessed. A low hum filled the air as he reached the corner leading into the other tunnel, and the Doctor couldn't help but turn around to observe. It sounded like a male choir, all low timbres and resonating hums.

And then the steam started moving backwards, being pulled towards the wall. The danger passing, the Doctor took some wary steps forward, resisting the urge to slip on his glasses since he knew they would just fog up instantly anyway. Donna and Melissa shuffled up beside him, having handed the inert McKenzie to Spade and Hunter.

"Doctor? What's-?"

He put up a silencing hand, shushing her insistently. "Just listen…"

The vibrating noise, that had once merely been coming from in front of them, echoed all around the cave. Suddenly the Doctor felt like he was in a monastery. He looked to the cloud, and noticed that the steam itself was blurry. Not that clouds of steam were supposed to have defined lines, but still… it was like he was looking through a smudged window. A quick glance to Donna confirmed that the effect was coming from the steam itself, and wasn't a result of his eyes failing him.

It was getting cooler. The Doctor could feel it. As the cloud slowly retreated to the wall, folding in on itself and getting smaller and smaller, the Doctor could feel the temperature decreasing with it. Not much, but enough to be noticeable to a Time Lord.

"Does that look blurry to you?" he murmured, keeping his eyes on the errant white shape.

Donna rolled her eyes. "Of course it's blurry, it's a flipping _cloud_."

The Doctor threw her eye-rolling right back at her. "No, I mean, blurrier than usual."

"I don't know, I've never seen a singing cloud before."

He was ready to send a retort back her way, but then thought about it. "Fair enough."

Like water down a sink, the steam vanished into the rather miniscule hole created by the laser, the comedy pop noise regrettably absent. All was silent in the cave.

"Well…" he mumbled, slipping his hands into his pockets. "That was odd."

Looking a little numb, Donna just nodded before glancing at the two workers holding the unconscious McKenzie.

"What the hell are you doing standing around? Look at him! Go, go!"

They jumped to life and started moving down the tunnel, Melissa trotting along importantly behind them. Donna looked to the Doctor exasperatedly.

"I don't know, humans…" She paused. "Oh God, I'm starting to sound like you."

"Is that not a good thing?"

"Not if it means I get skinny as a rake and wear funny suits all the time."

The Doctor just let that sink in before nodding. "Oh. All right."

Sighing, Donna irritably tossed some damp hair from her face and nodded to the now quiet wall. "So go on then. Steam going backwards and humming like a barbershop? What's that about?"

"Don't know…" He broke out in a grin and nodded to Donna. "But I like barbershop! That's funny, I like that! But seriously, don't know."

He started walking to the wall, pulling his hands from his pockets as he approached. The blurriness was gone, and there was little to no heat coming from the walls. Which was odd, seeing as there had been a laser blasting down on it for at least a month as well as scalding hot steam bursting through it just a few seconds ago. He placed an experimental palm on the wall, and pulled back his hand, hissing.

Donna was next to him in a second, inspecting his hand. "What, is it hot? Did you burn yourself?"

A grin emerged, and he wiggled his fingers. "Nah, only joking."

He got a sturdy fist in the arm for that.

"Ow!"

"Teach you to get smart with me, spaceman."

"All right, sorry…" he muttered, rubbing the arm defensively.

"So? Any ideas?"

He shook his head, running his hand over the now cool surface of the wall. "Not yet," he murmured. "But I managed to take a sample of it with the sonic screwdriver." Pulling out the relevant tool, he waved it around in front of Donna.

"If we can get back to the TARDIS, I should be able to analyse it." Frowning as he slipped the screwdriver away, he started smacking his lips. "Can you taste that?"

"What?"

"That… _taste_."

Donna shook her head, for once not seeming the least bit irritated by his Time Lord weirdness. She just seemed curious. "What kind of taste is it?"

"A… taste-y… taste." Donna rolled her eyes. He smacked his lips again, and recoiled. "Blimey, it's like biting on a lemon! Can you seriously not taste that?"

"Obviously not, spaceman." She cast her gaze around the cave, taking it in. "Can you tell where it's coming from?"

"Not sure… I can't smell anything…" He paused, and looked to where his hand was resting on the wall. Slowly removing it, he found a fine layer of dew across his palm. After inspecting it up and down with squinted eyes, the Doctor gave it a good lick.

"What the hell are you doing?" His companion was on him in an instant, removing his hand from his face. "God, it's like being with a toddler!"

Nonplussed, the Doctor smacked his lips a few times. "What?"

"You can't just go licking stuff that's been on cave walls! You could catch something!"

"Nah, I'm fine. See?" He stuck out his tongue and examined it with crossed eyes. "Nothing that I can see."

"What about disease and infections?"

"Trust me, I'd know."

For a few moments, Donna just stared at him in silent disbelief, hands on her hips in that 'attitude' pose she did so well. Then, finally, with an exasperated wave of her arms in the air, she just sighed.

"All right, then. So?"

"So…what?"

"What about that taste from the wall?"

He nodded. "That's definitely where the taste's coming from. I'm still not sure what it is, though… it's not something I taste in the air often, but I _have _tasted it."

Donna seemed ready to speak again when Melissa Tharsis appeared from around the corner, rapidly tapping her PDA. "I've sent them up to the medical bay. We don't know if it's safe down here anymore; you'd better come up with me."

"Is he all right?" Donna asked.

"His pulse is steady, at least. We'll know more when we get back up there."

With that, both Donna and Melissa began to leave, only to pause when they noted the Doctor's absence.

"Oi, spaceman. You coming?"

His attention on the wall, the Doctor just barely turned his head towards them, his eyes locked ahead. "Hm? Oh… yeah, yeah. All right. Coming. Allons-y."

There was something rather strange going on. And the Doctor wasn't sure whether to grin and think it was brilliant or start running.

--

(A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, folks! Please keep them coming!)


	4. Hidden

-1Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**From the Mist**_

_**Chapter Four: Hidden**_

The elevator ride back up was irritatingly silent, and Donna had little doubt it was because Mel checked her watch about ten times before they reached the top. As though McKenzie getting horrifically burnt and almost killed was deliberately done to take up her hard earned time. She tried to share a conspiratorial roll of the eyes with the Doctor, but he was, as expected, away in spaceman land, staring at some distant point on the wall with those big brown eyes.

"Penny for 'em."

At first, there wasn't even an acknowledgment that she had spoken. Then, with a blink, he looked over at her. "Hm?"

Donna sighed. "Your thoughts? Penny for 'em?"

"Penny for my… oh! Right." He wrinkled his face into a 'nothing, really' expression and nodded his head to the side. "Well… just thinking about any kind of creatures I know that can become gaseous shapes that hum."

"And?"

The elevator shook gently around them, and Donna was acutely aware of the interested gaze of Miss Tharsis from over her shoulder. Suddenly interested now, Little Miss Snotbag?

Finally, the Doctor shrugged. "Nope."

"What do you mean 'nope'?"

"I mean nope. Zip. Nada. Not a thing-a."

When the Doctor started putting silly noises at the end of words, Donna knew it was time to stop the conversation. Lovely little Mel, however, wasn't privy to this gem of information.

"Are you an expert in this kind of thing?"

Donna rolled her eyes. _And now she's appealing to his ego._

"Well," he croaked immodestly, "I'm sort of an expert in everything."

"And yet you don't know what alien this is…" Donna murmured, keeping her eyes on the doors ahead.

"Yes, thank _you_," he pointedly said in her direction. He returned to his adoring fan. "She's right though, I haven't got a clue. _Yet."_

Mel squinted at him. "So you're not an expert in everything?"

The Time Lord tugged on his ear a little as he groaned, trying to think of the right words. "Tell you what, how about we concentrate on how McKenzie's doing, hm?"

_Translation: I don't want to answer that question because you're right._

Donna smirked and the Doctor scowled as the doors slid open for them with a heavenly whoosh, revealing the polished white corridor beyond. Or at least, it _would _have done if the somewhat imposing form of Commander Venn hadn't been stood in the doorway, hands barely clenched behind his back while his face fumed.

"What the hell were you doing down there?" he growled, everyone but the Doctor forgotten.

A breezy smile was all he got as the Doctor led the way out of the elevator. The Commander slammed a meaty hand into the Time Lord's chest, and the skinny time traveller took notice. Mel tried to edge out of the elevator and stand beside her employer in a technique Donna had used more than once during family arguments. If you were accused of helping the misbehaving person, you slowly moved you way around until you were stood next to the person who was doing the telling off. That way they would look over to you for support and you could give them supportive 'God, you're so right' nods every now and then.

Unfortunately for her, Venn's bulky frame - which had been hidden by the desk when Donna had seen him in his office - prevented any such manoeuvres.

"Well, Donna here had never seen people mining for Krellian Ore. I thought it'd be nice to show her, and lovely Melissa here," the Doctor enthused, wrapping an arm around her rigid shoulders, "was _more _than happy to help. Bless her."

Venn's eyes looked as though they may pop as he blasted a powerful glare on the quickly shrinking assistant.

"Well, sir, I um… he's… he's obviously lying, I… I thought they were… I checked, I…" She bowed her head and cleared her throat. "How's McKenzie?" she squeaked.

The booming response made everyone jump except the Doctor, who simply watched with a neutral face, hands resting in pockets.

"McKenzie-" Venn stopped, closed his eyes, and took a breath. "McKenzie wouldn't even be in this predicament if you hadn't let unpredictable elements into a delicate environment."

But Donna wasn't having any of that. "Delicate environment? You had a bloody laser down there!"

The Doctor grinned. "But still, 'Unpredictable Elements'. I like that, sounds good. Make a good band name, that would. 'The Unpredictable Elements', with Donna Noble on keyboard. Don't you think?" His elastic grinning came into contact with Venn's granite scowl, and the Doctor tucked his head down, kicking the floor like a disciplined kid. "Sorry."

An authoritative finger shot up into the air, firmly floating just in front of the Doctor's nose. He watched it cross eyed as Venn spoke.

"You," he growled, "will get the hell off my ship. You will take her," he pointed to Donna, "with you, and then you will leave and forget everything that happened here."

"Oh!" the Doctor groaned. "And you were so close, as well! If you hadn't said 'forget everything that happened' I actually _might _have left! But now you've got me thinking there's something down here I shouldn't see, and that you're trying to keep things secret from me… and if there's one thing I can't _stand_, it's when someone else knows something I don't. Imagine how annoying I was in school. It was all 'Miss! Miss! What does that mean?' Well, I _say _Miss, it was more like 'Patrex, Patrex!', but still, the point is, I-"

"Are you done yet?"

"Oh, I could go on forever, me. Have you ever heard the one about the man from Nantucket who fell over and said-"

"ANY-way!" Donna announced, barging past both Mel and Venn with enough force to get to the Doctor and lace an arm through his. "You're talking to a Doctor here, and it seems to me you've got a man who could use one."

"We don't need doctors," Mel cut in, some of her previous snooty attitude fading back in. "We have fully automated systems to take care of any medical issues."

"Automated? Well, that's a disaster waiting to happen, isn't it? Haven't you ever seen WALL-E?"

She didn't even wait for anyone to answer, instead pulling the somewhat amused looking Doctor along with her and down the corridor.

"WALL-E?" he murmured.

"It's a film."

"I know, I've got it in the TARDIS."

She grinned. "It's great, isn't it? I like the little cleaner robot-"

"Yeah, Donna, little bit of focus, please. Do you even know where the medical bay _is?_"

They stopped at the junction at the end of the corridor. Identical corridors stretched out to the left and right, seemingly going on forever.

With a scowl, Donna thrust her hands to her hips and glared at the two stunned crewmembers staring at them.

"Well? Don't just stand there! Where's the medical room-"

The Doctor rubbed his eye and muttered, "-bay-"

"Bay?"

--

As it turned out, the medical bay was two right turns followed by a sharp left, up three floors and then on the right. No less complicated than the TARDIS, which was continually changing depending on how the Doctor had treated it the day before. The bay itself wasn't much different from the rest of the complex; a polished sheen on everything, white walls making it look like somewhere between a bathroom and a spa.

Except, of course, for the muddy scuff marks running from the door to the middle of three beds that looked like it had slid out of the wall like a DVD tray. The black, shining wall above the bed was a touch screen, vitals beeping and flashing along with several other readouts that Donna was nowhere near well versed enough in medicine to understand. Where was Martha to make sense of it when you needed her? All the Doctor did was go all wide eyed and say 'oh, that's interesting, isn't it?'

The Doctor went all wide eyed. "Oh, that's interesting, isn't it?"

Donna tried to hold back her sigh as the Time Lord left her side to stand beside McKenzie. Not that Hunter and Spade made that easy for him. They gave him a protective glare before mutely allowing him to pass and look the eerily still miner over. Trying not to seem too insensitive to the nature of the situation, Donna leaned over to try and get a better look at McKenzie.

"So then? Is he all right?"

His lips were a thin line, which was never a good sign from the usually wide mouthed Time Lord. "Not sure yet." The Doctor shoved around in his jacket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver before holding it over McKenzie's face.

"Brainwaves are _incredibly _erratic…" he murmured. He frowned, looking up to the monitor wall. "But why isn't the sensory equipment picking it up?" After giving it an experimental tap with the back of his fingers, the Doctor came away scratching his head.

Hunter looked from the monitor to the Doctor. "What's wrong? Is it not working?"

"Seems to be, but the sonic screwdriver's picking something up that the medical scanner isn't. Which _shouldn't _be possible really. Good news," he said, taking a breath, "is that his vitals have stabilised and he doesn't seem to be in any danger."

"But…" Donna looked down at the miner over Spade's shoulder. "Look at his face. He's so badly burnt."

"Nah, the burns are nothing to worry about. 53rd century medicine? He'll be up and about in no time."

The miners seemed to be having a rather private discussion over the sleeping form of their co-worker, so the Doctor elected to leave them alone and circled around to meet Donna.

Venn, meanwhile, looked like _he_ had been burned, and was staring at the Doctor like a man possessed. Or that loony in his office, Tamar. Donna hoped the Doctor was right in his assumption that Venn wanted Tamar under wraps; the idea of that nightmare of a man having free reign to walk the corridors gave Donna the shivers. It looked like Mel had decided McKenzie wasn't worth her time and had retreated on the journey over here. Or she was locked in a toilet somewhere hyperventilating about how she had ruined her career.

Before the Doctor could reach Donna, Venn had already clamped a hand over his arm and tugged the Time Lord to him.

"What did you mean, '53rd century medicine'?"

Staring into his eyes, the Doctor replied quickly and easily. "I meant 53rd century medicine. You know, the century we live in? 'Isn't technology marvellous', that kind of thing?"

He thrust an accusing finger in her direction as she approached. "Then why didn't she know about it?"

"What, Donna? Well, bless her, but she's a bit dim."

"Oi!" All eyes were suddenly on her. She smiled. "Sorry," she said serenely, putting on her best angelic smile.

The miners didn't really care about her outburst anyway, and returned to their conspiratorial conversation. The Doctor and Venn, meanwhile, were in one of those testosterone filled staring matches that the Doctor so often found himself stuck in. Donna wasn't sure if he enjoyed them or if they were just a side effect of his admittedly pretty irritating personality, but lo and behold, it was happening again.

Another quake rocked the room for a moment, but felt a little more subdued than the one that had almost knocked her off her feet earlier.

Finally, Spade interrupted the staring contest, unaware of what he had just stepped into.

"Commander Venn?"

Slowly, so _very _slowly, Venn dragged his dark eyes from the Doctor and over to the miner.

"Yes?"

"Me and Hunter were talking, and we think that if we're going to go back down there, we need some extra incentive."

The Doctor grinned. "Unions. You've got to love them."

"Too right, mate," Hunter muttered, his arms folded as he leant against the wall, thick arms glistening with grime and sweat-

Donna brought herself back to reality with a blink and a shake of the head.

The good Commander was not looking amused. "That's not my department. Talk to Tharsis."

Smiling, Spade tilted his head. "Well, that's the thing. She's gone off to have one of her panic attacks, so she's probably not going to be back for awhile."

Once again, Donna tried to hold back her instinctive response, which this time was to pump the air with her fist at having got it right.

"So," Spade continued, slipping his hands into his jumpsuit pockets, "either you give us more money… or we don't work until Miss Tharsis comes back. Which won't be, oh… for another hour, at least? Clearly time that could be spent mining, don't you think?"

At first, Venn said nothing. Donna took the opportunity to cross the glistening room behind Venn and sidle up beside the Doctor.

"How're your eyes?"

"Hm? Oh, fine. It was just the wall and the steam. As soon as we got away from them, everything was clear as crystal."

"Any idea why?"

Clucking thoughtfully, the Doctor absently shook his head. "Not yet."

She nodded to the standoff between Venn and the miners. "I didn't think they'd have pay disputes this far in the future."

"Wherever there's jobs, there's pay disputes."

"Yeah, I know, but I thought it would be all no poverty, no disease, just everyone doing what they liked for a living, that sort of thing."

"You've already had that."

"Really?"

"For about two hundred years. Then hyper-television was invented." He sucked a breath in through his teeth. "I tell you, Eastenders was never the same." Taking in the disillusioned expression she now held, the Doctor quickly added, "Don't worry though, you get it back. Takes a few more hundred years, but then the third great and bountiful Human Empire starts up, and everything'll be peachy."

"How long does that last?"

"Spoilers," he said, tapping his nose. "What if we go there someday?"

Donna just shrugged. It looked like Venn was about to speak. The Commander had seemed keenly aware of them standing around staring at him, and looked like he was deeply considering what to say.

"Fine."

The miners were quiet for a moment. After a brief silence, Hunter pushed himself off the wall and walked up to stand beside Spade.

"Say that again?"

"I said 'fine'." You don't have any more business going down there anyway. You'll be paid fully for your time, don't worry."

The statement itself was desperate, but the way Venn said it wasn't. It was like he didn't even care one way or the other.

Hunter, meanwhile, had made his way closer to the Commander. "Now, when you say we'll be paid fully, what do-"

"You will be paid. _Fully."_

The meaning of that statement was not lost on the miners, who just looked to each other with a victorious smirk and a wink.

Donna shared the expression with the Doctor, who was grinning ear to ear. She was beginning to like these blokes. You know, outside of their rough-and-tumble looks and sturdy bodies and pert-

She cleared her throat and blinked the thoughts away.

--

The control room, unlike every other room in this incredibly strange place, was rather dark. Glowing control panels and buttons flashed in the still remarkably clear blue hue of the room, making her feel like she was in a roller disco. The eerie silence sort of took away from the mood, however, as did the glowing table that stood between her, the Doctor, Venn, Mel and the file clerk Allen.

"So then," the Doctor announced, more than aware of the fact that he had followed Venn uninvited into this hub of activity, "Krellian ore, eh?"

"Yes," Venn replied flatly, looking the Doctor straight in the eye.

"'Yes'? Is that all I get?"

"Yes."

"Oh, come on! What we saw down there can be described as a lot of things, but ore? I don't think so. What about you, Donna?"

Taken off guard by the question, Donna had to shake her head before she could answer. The Doctor wasn't really waiting for a response, however, instead continuing on.

"Exactly! And I bet if I ran a scan - oh, 'ran a scan', I like that - on here…" Skinny hands working quickly on the touch screen that made up the table before him. Before he could do much of anything, large hands struck out, slapping his wrists away.

"You aren't authorised to touch this equipment." Venn had a dangerous look in his eye, compounded by the haunting blue light that lit his face.

"Yeah, but I never really worry about what I'm authorised to do. Donna, press the yellow button, if you would."

She did as she was told. The display on the table changed, the topical map of what she assumed was the tunnels below changing from blue to a slightly irritating orange.

"Isn't that interesting?" the Doctor observed quietly, looking to Venn with false wonder. "The sensors aren't picking up any Krellian ore in the area you're drilling. Why is that, Commander Venn?"

Both Mel and Allen, who had up to this point had been thoroughly disinterested in what was being said, were staring at Venn. He shook slightly, as though his entire body was trying to contribute to the excuse his brain was concocting.

The Doctor wasn't about to wait for him to weasel out of it, however. "And look there," he said loudly, skipping around the Commander and pointing to a massive yellow patch behind what Donna assumed was the wall the miners had been working on.

"Massive unknown life form readings behind that wall. The exact same wall that ended up scalding poor old McKenzie and leaving him a vegetable." He looked over to Mel. "Deliberately misleading employees, is that against union rules?"

She nodded dangerously, staring at Venn. "Most definitely."

Obviously uncomfortable with such scrutiny, Venn squirmed. "I don't have to explain myself to you."

"No, very true," the Doctor admitted lightly, "but what about your employer, hm? Is he or she going to be happy that you've taken over this little operation for your own purposes?"

Donna expected Venn to blow his top. Instead, that statement seemed to calm him, and, hands neatly folded behind his back, the Commander just smiled serenely. It looked pretty sinister on him, Donna had to admit.

"My employer," he purred, smile becoming a smirk, "is well aware of my activities."

Mel looked aghast. "You _knew _that… stuff was down there? Mr Night knew?"

The Doctor nodded slowly. "Mr Night, I _see…"_

"So you came here looking for the steam?" Donna asked, ignoring the Doctor's musings. "Why?"

"And why should I tell you?" Venn said, glaring in a condescending way that made Donna actually clench her fist. Not many people could do that. Mel opened her mouth to reply, but Venn cut her off with a pointed look. "_Any_ of you?"

"Because whatever's down there has the potential to cause a lot of damage."

Everyone looked to the Doctor. He had since moved to the table and inspected the life form readings a little closer, glasses slipped on without anyone noticing.

"And if you're planning on doing what I think you're doing, and trust me, I've met lots of people who think that they think they know what I'm thinking about what they're thinking only for them to realise what they thought I was thinking wasn't anything like what I thought they were thinking at all," he took a breath, seemingly more to remember where he was than to actually replenish his air supply, "then I'm going to have to warn you… it's a bad idea."

"Is that right?"

The Doctor scowled. "Of course it's right, why would I say something if it wasn't right? But… to be honest, I'm not even that worried about the steam, because A, You haven't got any way to transport it - I've seen your schematics, and there's nothing on board designed to take a life form like that - and 2 - wait… no, B! You've got Tamar here for something." Hands behind his back in a manner mimicking Venn, the Doctor strode up to the Commander, standing nose to nose with him as his voice went dangerously low. "Now why would you bring one potentially dangerous life form to another potentially dangerous life form, hmm?"

"What potentially dangerous life form?" a timid little voice asked, and all in the room looked over in mild surprise to see Robert Allen, file clerk, staring at the two from behind his clipboard. Donna couldn't help but smile.

"Good question," Mel agreed harshly, an accusatory glare at Venn. Donna ached a little when she saw how pleased Allen was at Mel's offhand encouragement. She knew that feeling all too well; looking for approval from someone who only gave it very occasionally, and even then in an offhanded, uncaring way. It disturbed her that all she could think about was her mum.

"Didn't you know?" Donna asked in mock surprise. "Haven't you met your botany expert before?"

The PA simply mouthed 'botany expert' before intensifying her glare at Venn up to setting 100.

Once more, Venn was lost for words, glancing between the four accusing gazes that had now settled firmly on him. He was looking increasingly annoyed at the Doctor in particular, probably wishing he had thrown the two of them out a long time ago.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," he muttered, as though finally realising that fact for himself. "You already know far more than you're authorised to. Especially you two," he nodded to both the Doctor and Donna in quick succession. "If I had a security contingent on this vessel I'd have you shot."

Mel stormed around the table. "Commander Venn! You in no way have the kind of power that would authorise you to shoot innocent people. Uninvited or not."

"And what makes you think they're innocent? Haven't you noticed that everything has been running smoothly until they came along? And this one," he spat, waving an angry finger in the Doctor's face, "this one… he knows far more than he's telling."

"About what?"

"About the creatures down there, about Tamar-!" Venn stopped himself, straightened up, and cleared his throat. "But. _You're _not supposed to know about that, so why don't we stop right there? And you two," he growled, whirling to look at them, "_You two_, I want off this ship. You have no reason to be here, and you're causing enough trouble as it is."

"Hang on a minute," Donna said loudly, moving up beside the Doctor. "Intergalactic Law Enforcement Agents here. We ain't leaving."

"This is a private vessel, and this planet is in neutral territory. You have no jurisdiction here, ifyou _are_ Law Enforcement Agents, which I doubt."

"But the thing is," the Doctor weaselled in, slipping his hands into his pockets, "there comes a point, Commander Venn, when words like 'jurisdiction' and 'neutral territory' just become a bit redundant. And this is one of them. Whatever Tamar is, he's dangerous, and you know that. You have no idea what could happen if he comes into contact with whatever's down there."

"Actually, Doctor, it's quite the opposite. Now, if you don't mind, I will kindly ask you to either leave this ship or stay the hell out of the way. We have work to do, if you haven't noticed. Now maybe I can't force you to leave. But I'm going to have the elevator sealed off to anyone without the proper clearance, and the crew will be informed that you are not to be co-operated with in any way." He smiled. "So really, the choice is yours. Goodbye, Doctor."

With that smug little speech out of the way, Venn turned on his heel and marched out of the control room. Mel stayed for only a moment, looking to the Doctor and Donna in disbelief for a few moments before angrily stalking off after the Commander, no doubt to chew his ear off about everything she had just heard. Left behind, Allen smiled shyly at the two of them before rushing after Mel.

The door slid shut behind him, leaving the Doctor and Donna alone in the control room. The Doctor leant back against the table, legs and arms crossed.

"So is that it, then? We just let him walk away?"

The Doctor stared at her.

Then he grinned.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Pushing off from the table, he turned on his heel and started working on the massive touch screen.

"So… do you know this Mr Night?"

"Yes. Well, no. Sort of. I've met him before, but this is before I met him. If you get what I mean."

"Nope."

He sighed, his voice croaking a little as he thought about how best to explain it. "I met him later in his life, but earlier in mine."

Suddenly, she understood, but she didn't particularly want to say why. River Song was pretty fresh in both of their minds, and Donna wasn't too keen on bringing the Doctor's mood down again. Even though she was technically still alive, but still. The Doctor still lost her.

"And what was his company like? Or, what _will _it be like?"

He grinned, glancing at her from the touch screen. "You're getting good at this. And… let me put it this way; their methods don't get any better." Suddenly he slapped the table. "This thing is _impossible _to navigate."

She leant over his shoulder, trying to follow his fingers but giving up after a few seconds. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to get a map of the ship- ah! There we go. Hmm. Plenty of human life signs. See? They're the red ones." He pointed to a slowly moving red blob on one of the floors of the ship. It was accompanied by two other red blobs, all three of them gradually getting further and further away from two stationary blobs, a red and a yellow.

"Is that you? The yellow?"

"Yup," he popped. "Guess my race isn't listed here. I just come up as 'unknown'. Now, there should be- yes! There he is."

Another unmoving yellow blob rested on one of the upper floors.

"Is that Tamar?"

"Yeah…"

"But the computer doesn't know what species he is either?"

"No, and that _is _a bit weird."

"Why would Venn have an alien on board that was unknown?"

"Maybe he doesn't. He probably just doesn't want someone activating a scan and finding out there's a dangerous species on the ship. My guess is that he went in and deleted the species listing from the archive."

Donna nodded silently and looked down to the unmoving yellow blur. "And why do you want to know where he is?"

"This is me we're talking about, Donna. Dangerous alien that wants to kill me but won't be able to because of Metabolastasis field generator bracelet? What else am I going to do?" The Doctor stood to his full height and slipped his glasses away, cheeky twinkle in his eye.

"I'm going to talk his ear off."

--

Apparently, talking his ear off didn't include Donna. Which she found strange, considering one of the main complaints from, well, everyone she met was that she had too much gob for her own good. When asked what he wanted to talk about, his answer of 'Oh, you know, golf, bananas, the universe and everything' hadn't really satisfied her curiosity.

Not that she minded. As far as she was concerned, the less time she spent being stared at by an alien that was potentially a serial killer or rapist or something, the better. And the thought had occurred to her that McKenzie was all by himself in the medical bay while his fellow miners were God knows where.

So here she was, sat next to the unconscious McKenzie on a stool she had to drag from a room two doors down. The fact that it was too heavy to lift probably hadn't gone unnoticed by anyone within a mile radius of her, seeing as the base was made of the same polished metal as everything else. That screeching noise would have broken the Doctor's glasses, if he'd have been close enough.

"I had a boyfriend who wore stuff like this," Donna mused. It was the old 'people can hear you when they're in a coma' thing. Whether McKenzie was actually _in_ a coma, Donna didn't know. She didn't really understand the readouts on the machine on the wall, and the Doctor had been talking about crazy brainwaves.

"He was a good guy, as well. He didn't break up with me, I broke up with him, which is a first." She laughed, even though she wasn't really feeling it. "I suppose that's why I've been staring at you all like I have. Sorry about that, if it's been a bit much."

The monitor beeped, but Donna paid it no mind. Things were beeping all the time on spaceships like this; if she worried every time a piece of technology did something for no reason, she would be a nervous wreck by now.

"I don't know if you've come across stuff like this before. I hope it's not. There's nothing more scary than your first time. I had to deal with robot Santas and big spiders. Not to mention skinny nutters with suits and trainers and… worryingly good hair. It's not just me, is it? A bloke shouldn't be allowed to have hair that good. And he doesn't even seem to do anything with it. It's just… _like _that."

Two beeps sounded from the monitor.

"Sorry," she said, smiling. "Why would you want to hear me go on about the Doctor's hair? I guess I just don't know what to say. I'm sort of new at talking to people in steam induced comas."

Three beeps this time. Then four. Five.

Donna frowned, and looked up at the monitor. More lights were flashing than before. Standing up, she inspected the thing closer, but still had no better idea as to what any of it meant. She looked down at McKenzie to see his eyes spring open.

"Oh my God!" she gasped, backing up as McKenzie sat up with a jolt. Nothing happened for a moment. The vitals monitor beeped ever faster.

"McKenzie? You all right?"

His burnt face made it difficult to see if there was any expression there. All she _could _see was that he was sweating profusely, his jumpsuit becoming damper by the second. He didn't turn to look at her or even acknowledge her as he swung his legs around to the side of the bed and stood up robotically. The monitor switched off as his body left the metal surface of the bed, the sudden silence making McKenzie's zombified motions all the more chilling.

"Now… hold on a minute," she said, standing in front of McKenzie as he started for the door. "You might want to wait for the Doctor, yeah?"

She wasn't sure if there was some kind of radio system somewhere, but she desperately needed one right now. McKenzie kept on coming.

"Because he's a doctor. And… you look like you could use a doctor right now."

McKenzie backed her up through the automatically opening door and down the corridor.

"All right, now just… stop, now, yeah? You need to stop now!" She pushed her hands onto his chest and quickly sprang back with a yelp. He was hot. And she didn't mean that in the way that would make the Doctor roll his eyes and tell her to focus. This was scalding hot.

They were making their way very slowly to the elevator doors. Once reached, McKenzie slowly moved a hand to the control panel and summoned the lift. It slid open almost instantly, and McKenzie backed her into the small room.

"McKenzie? McKenzie?"

There was no reply. The miner just pressed the button to take them down to the floor where mineshaft elevator resided.

Donna was beginning to wish the Doctor had given her a super-phone as well as Martha.

--

(A/N: All the reviews are great, folks! Please keep them coming!)


	5. Beneath

-1Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**From the Mist**_

_**Chapter Five: Beneath**_

A triumphant 'ah' escaped the Doctor's lips as the door slid open. It had taken several tries with the psychic paper to convince the scanner beside the door that he was, in fact, Commander Venn. Not that he would _want _to be Commander Venn, closed-minded human that he was. Light shone into the room over his shoulders, spreading out in an elongated square in front of him.

The room was noticeably darker than the corridor outside. The Doctor wondered if it was to do with whatever species Tamar was. Sensitive to light… narrows it down.

Several smaller booth-like rooms ran along the wall on his left, nothing but darkness in all but one; the booth on the far right corner. Although 'prison cell' was probably a more appropriate word. An almost neon blue light shone from inside, and, stood in front of it, staring as though at a ghost, was the good Melissa Tharsis. Her gaze snapped over to him, although it seemed more in panic than the customary snooty demeanour.

"What do you want?" she snapped, checking her hair absently.

The Doctor hid his frown as he so often did when he noticed something odd but didn't want anyone else to know. No 'How did you get in here'? Why was she so nervous? And the fact that she was checking her hair… it meant something, but probably something only Donna would understand.

He hid the psychic paper behind his back and wandered around the dark room absently. "Oh, just going for a wander. Nice ship, by the way. I like the whiteness. Reminds of my old place. Before I changed it, of course. Now it's all gold and green… and occasionally red, but that's only when something's _very _wrong. And, of course, it's blue on the outside, but that hasn't changed for, oh-"

"Look, just… shut up and…" she finished the eloquent sentence with an almighty groan and stormed out of the room, heels clicking incessantly against the metal floor.

The grin only lasted for as long as she was in the room. As soon as the doors slid shut behind her, the Doctor pocketed the psychic paper and made his way to the cell in the far corner. Inside, bright blue energy came from the very walls of the small corridor of a cell, leaving Tamar's very still form as nothing more than a silhouette as the Doctor's eyes took a moment to adjust.

"Hello, Doctor," he purred, head tilting a little.

Tamar's face came into focus, and the Doctor relaxed his eyes a little. "Tamar."

They were both silent for a while. The Doctor just watched him, as unmoving as his current quarry. Ooo, 'current quarry'. Try saying that three times fast.

He blinked the thought away as Tamar took a very slow, very deliberate breath.

"Why are you here?"

The Doctor decided to take an equally long time before responding. "I could ask you the same thing, I suppose. I mean, what are you doing in that small thing?"

"I like it here."

"But it's so _tiny_," he groaned, walking up to the threshold of the booth. "Don't you want to stretch your legs?"

Tamar's small, tight smile was much more apparent from this distance. "What makes you think I've got legs?"

A brown eyebrow cocked ever so slightly, and the Doctor put his hands in his pockets. _Ah. So we're going to play that game, are we?_

"Why, what in the world do you mean, Tamar? I can see your legs right there. Oh, but," he gaped in mock horror, "they couldn't be a _disguise_, could they? I mean, you're as human as I am, aren't you?"

The other man's head tilted over from one side to the other, and his smile grew. "I suppose I am, yes."

Eyes thinning, the Doctor leant against the wall beside the entrance to the cell. "So, making friends with the staff, are we? Chums forever, that sort of thing?"

"I was… informing her of my plight."

"And what might that be?"

"I'm victimised for being different." The smirk never left his face as he spoke.

"What? That's it? Commander Venn's being mean to you, is that?"

A quiet noise almost bordering on a laugh escaped the alien opposite him, and he sat down on a bench jutting out of the wall beside him. "No, no, Doctor. Nothing so… small."

"Then what? Listen, if you're being used, if something's wrong, I can help. But you have got to-"

"Tell all? Reveal the diabolical plans of those in power, gain my freedom and return to the waiting arms of my family, is that it?"

The Doctor blew out a breath. "Well, if you want to steal my thunder, yeah, that's _basically _what I'm going for."

"It wouldn't work."

"Why not? Look, Commander Venn's just taking orders, he'll-"

"It's not that."

"And that metabolastasis field of yours… it's easy to-"

"It's not that either."

"Then what?"

Tamar's eyes languished to the left and to the right before he slowly moved to his feet, eyes still darting about the room as he approached the Doctor. He leant forward to hear, the buzzing of the invisible force field audible from where he stood beside the entrance to the cell.

"I. _Ate._ My family."

The alien laughed, and a fist slammed into the field. With a white flash and a vicious buzz he was thrown back across the cell, hitting the wall behind him before slumping down to the ground. The Doctor just watched, horrified. Grunting, Tamar slowly started to heave himself to his feet, staring down at the ground from where he was sprawled on the floor.

"What are you?" the Doctor asked again, his voice low.

A single laugh was the only reply at first. Slowly, Tamar managed to bring himself to his feet. "If I had access to my own body," he murmured, looking dazed as he stumbled towards the Doctor once more, "I would have ripped open this place… and torn everyone inside out. Your companion seems to have a lot of life to her. Her heart must be strong."

His grin made the Doctor shudder a little, but he figured he hid it well.

"Strong hearts always taste the best."

The Time Lord just stared at him for a few moments, eyes wide and breath hissing through his teeth before he calmed himself, slipping his hands back into his pockets. He moved forward until he was against the force field much the same as Tamar had been seconds earlier.

"You know, I could give you a list of all the truly terrible, awful people and monsters I've met, devoid of conscience, mercy and remorse. I could tell you about all the places I've visited… bleak, terrifying places, burning and screaming the only noises in the air. I could tell you about how I'm the Doctor and exactly what that means. But instead, I'm just going to give you some advice."

Bringing up a hand, he beckoned Tamar over with a single digit. Looking amused, Tamar came forward and mockingly placed his ear to the force field.

"If you kill anyone… just one person… I'm going to have words."

Tamar brought his head back as though burned, black eyes boring into the Doctor, studying him. The Doctor kept his own eyes locked on Tamar as he backed away and finally turned, heading for the doors at an increasingly leisurely pace.

As soon as they slid shut behind him, he let go of the breath he had been holding. And with lungs like his, that was saying something.

Unnerving didn't even cover the feelings Tamar engendered. It really didn't.

Those thoughts were obviously shared by the good Miss Tharsis, who was resting against the wall beside the doors as he exited. Immediately aware of his presence, she frantically straightened herself out and started checking something on her clipboard.

"Everything all right?" he asked lightly, hands still lounging in his pockets.

"Hm? Fine, fine. If you don't mind, I'm busy." She busily trotted past him, eyes burning a hole in the opposite end of the corridor.

The Doctor kept up with her easily, long legs being a certain advantage of this regeneration. As he spoke, he kept his eyes on the same spot that Miss Tharsis found so fascinating. "He is interesting, though, isn't he?"

Her eyes were still locked on the same point, but still definitely seemed to be seeing something else. "Yes…" She shook it away quickly, and looked down to her clipboard. "That is, interesting that Commander Venn would keep him from us like he did."

"Oh, yes," he said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "but _he's _interesting, isn't he?" The Doctor tutted and shook his head dramatically. "It's a horrible mess he's got himself into…"

His walking companion stopped on the spot, staring over at him. "He… told you about that?"

"Not sure what I can disclose. Doctor-patient confidentiality. Why, what did he tell you?"

Tharsis stared up into his eyes for the longest time before pivoting on her heel and walking off down the corridor. He watched her go, bewildered.

"Wait, what- where're you going?"

"You've already lied to me once before and God knows how many other times. Why would I trust you with anything now?"

The Doctor took off in pursuit. "But he's-"

He was interrupted when she suddenly whirled to face him, icy blue stare matching his easily. "What? What did he tell _you_? How about you trust _me_? Do you think you can do that?"

The Time Lord took in her demeanour. She was defensive, that much he had been able to understand from the first instant he met her. But this was different. She was defensive as though trying to deflect attention away from something else. Something…

Ah.

"Melissa," he said slowly, changing approaches rather quickly. Using her first name seemed to get her attention and lower the barriers somewhat, so the Doctor kept on going.

"He's dangerous."

She rolled her eyes, and started walking again.

Chasing after her, he kept up with her each time she accelerated her pace. "He's more dangerous than you could know. If he's told you something, something important, it's _vital _that you tell me. You have no idea how much damage he could do if he got out."

"Do you?"

He didn't reply.

"Exactly." They reached the end of the corridor, which also happened to be the entrance to an elevator. She tapped the black touchpad control panel that would summon the lift. A blue arrow pointing upwards blinked on and off slowly, and the Doctor found his eyes drawn to it a little. As Tharsis continued, he put his attention back on her.

"You like to think that you're different, but in the end, you're like so many others. So ready to condemn and crucify someone, and for what? Because they're different? Because he looked at you funny?" Her gaze hardened, and she moved closer to the Doctor, getting in his face in an unpleasant way.

"You know what I think?" she asked, in a manner indicating she _didn't _want a response. "I think you're annoyed because you don't know what he is. You don't know him, don't understand him, and that terrifies you. Like so many men."

The Doctor smiled a humourless smile. "_I_ don't understand him? And you do?"

"I'd say so, yes. I'm more willing to trust, Doctor."

"I trust people."

"Really? What's your name?"

His mouth opened and closed like a fish, and Tharsis smirked. The elevator opened up behind her.

"That's what I thought. I bet your friend Donna doesn't even know, does she?"

"It doesn't matter what my name is. It isn't important." The Doctor knew he shouldn't be replying to this; it didn't matter at all what this person thought of him. But something about her attitude brought out the defensive in him.

"The importance isn't the point. It's the _trust, _Doctor. Something you don't seem to have. Not for you friends," she nodded over his shoulder to the cell block where Tamar was held, "and certainly not for the misunderstood."

And, that said, she entered the lift. As she reached for the button to take her away after her speech, a sudden crackling voice gave her pause, her hand recoiling as though burned.

"_Doctor?" _It was Donna. And she sounded pretty panicked._ "Is this thing working or what?"_

He launched himself into the lift, fumbling Tharsis aside. "Donna? Donna, what is it?"

"_Doctor, it's McKenzie. He's up, and his vitals were going mad and now he's walking, and he's going for the mineshaft lift."_

The Doctor looked to Tharsis frantically. "Which floor is it?"

"Six."

He slammed a thumb onto the touch screen, and the lift doors closed. It started moving with nary a sound as the Doctor leant towards the comm.

"Is he saying anything? Has he done anything to tell you what he's after?"

"_No, he's just- wait, he… look, I've gotta go. I can't just let him go down there like this!"_

"Donna, wait! Donna!"

No reply. He groaned and slammed an irritated hand against the panel. It squawked negatively in reply, and he shot an irritated glare at it. After an eternity, the doors opened, and the Doctor flew out, glancing left and right before seeing Donna at the far end of the corridor, pushing against McKenzie as he walked towards the mine shaft elevator.

He ignored whatever Tharsis was shouting about as he charged down the corridor, sneakers squeaking against the smooth metal. By the time he reached them, Donna was in the elevator with McKenzie, unable to get around his almost zombified form.

"Doctor!"

The Doctor took an unsure step forward, his hand ready to reach for his sonic screwdriver, as ridiculous as it sounded. "McKenzie, stop, listen to me! That's enough! McKenzie!"

McKenzie turned and pressed a button on the inside of the elevator, ignoring Donna's rather loud requests that he do otherwise. He still had the same burns up his body, his face obscured with red, blotchy marks.

And then the Doctor saw his eyes. There was steam coming out of his eyes.

"What the hell?"

Tharsis' breathy question merely elicited a silent nod from the Doctor, who struggled to find any sign of life in McKenzie's incredibly still expression. The doors slid shut, and the Doctor launched forward, screwdriver in his hand and pointed at the small touch-screen control panel beside the closed doors.

"Get it back here, _now!"_

"You can't," Tharsis said, coming up beside him.

"I can send a signal down below. I should be able to get them up before they can step off-"

"Doctor, you _can't_. There are sensors in the doors that prevent them from closing when someone is trying to step out. It's impossible."

The frustration built in him, his breathing getting heavier with each passing moment before he kicked the doors in frustration. Tharsis jumped at the sudden, violent action, but he paid her no notice. He just kept his eye on the status indicator, waiting for the elevator to reach ground floor before he summoned it up and went down himself.

"What's going on?"

Venn's voice just made his jaw set tighter. Seemingly afraid that the Doctor would answer first, Tharsis stepped in quickly to answer the good Commander.

"McKenzie's gone down to the mines, sir. He didn't seem himself, he was… walking like a man possessed. And… he took the Doctor's friend with him."

The Doctor's shoulders tightened, but he didn't turn to face them. "Donna."

"What?" Venn's distaste was evident even in a one syllable word.

"Her name is Donna."

"Doesn't matter. You're not going down there."

_That _got the Doctor to turn around, incredulous scowl knotting his features. "What?"

"No-one goes down there. Not even the miners."

Trying his utmost to keep his voice under control, the Doctor moved just that little bit closer to Venn until they were standing nose to nose. "And what happens to Donna?"

The Commander's expression didn't change as he spoke. "She shouldn't have been in McKenzie's way."

Now, the Doctor had found that this most recent incarnation of his wasn't taken to physical violence. The occasional sword fight aside, he pretty much kept his hands and feet to himself. He _had _tripped someone up, but that was about it. But Venn was very much pushing that trait to the test. It made him wish he was back in his UNIT days where he used to think nothing of unleashing some Venusian Aikido on troublesome idiots like Venn.

Instead, he just took a very deep breath before storming off past the good Commander, heading for the elevator. He heard Tharsis calling out for him as he went, but he tuned her out as he summoned the lift and promptly made his way up to the control room.

When he burst through the barely opened doors into the control room, Robert Allen nearly fell out his chair. Considering he was tilting it backwards with his feet up on the holo-table, it wasn't really surprising.

"I, uh, I was working-"

The Doctor went straight past him and activated the holo-table. When it took it's sweet time loading up, he slammed an impatient fist onto the edge, making Allen jump again.

"Uh, I uh… it's pretty slow, I know, but-"

His piercing stare whipped over to Allen for just a moment. "Look, Robert, I know you're nervous, but please," he brought a quick finger to his lips. "Shush."

The temp paused for just a moment before nodding quickly and plonking himself back down in his chair. Appeased, the Doctor returned to the holo-table, which had just activated. Lithe fingers a blur on the touch screen buttons, the Doctor brought up the same diagram of the complex that he had before. Tapping furiously on several buttons, he directed the sensor sweeps down into the tunnels below the ship.

He felt Robert's presence beside him once more, curiously peering over to see what he was doing. Usually such a personality would amuse and impress the Doctor, but right now, it was on the verge of getting in his way.

"What're you looking for?"

The Doctor ignored him, but then shouted loudly, pointing at two red blobs in the maze of tunnels below.

"There!"

"What?"

"That's Donna and McKenzie."

But then one of the red signals changed colour, becoming yellow. Frowning, the Doctor slipped his glasses on.

"Hmm… that's-"

It changed back to red.

"-interesting…"

"It changed," Robert marvelled, looking from the signal to the Doctor, and back again. "How?"

"That's the question, isn't it? There aren't many humans I know that can change their physiology on a whim like that. Or species in general, for that matter."

"So… who's the one doing the changing?"

"I'm _assuming _it's McKenzie. Mostly because I've known Donna for awhile and she can't change her species like that. Oh, and McKenzie had steam coming out of his eyes, which… is a bit weird. Well, for a human. Well, for a human male. Well, for a human male that works in caves and tunnels."

Seeming a little more comfortable, Robert shuffled his chair closer to the table. "So, so… where are they going?"

"Looks like they're heading for the drilling site. See?" he said, pointing, "there's the wall that McKenzie and the others broke through."

"And then what?"

He groaned irritably. "I don't know. Personally, I've never been possessed by steam creatures and taken a woman I barely know into some caves, so my experience with those who do is a bit limited. You?"

The shocked silence from Robert and the expression he wore suddenly had the Doctor thinking back to his days in his sixth life, constantly snapping and shouting at questions that, in other lives, he would have found agreeable and even admirable.

"Sorry," he said quietly, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"It's okay. You're just worried about Donna. But she's fine, see? She's-" Robert stopped suddenly. "She's walking… through a wall…"

His eyes sprang open and he slapped his glasses back on. "What?"

"The wall of the cave. She and McKenzie just… walked through it."

His mouth hung open, his tongue idle tracing a pattern around his teeth as he concentrated on the readings in front of him. He adjusted the controls to make sure there wasn't any kind of error.

"Nope, the scanners are working fine…"

"Can she… walk through walls? Is that just something she can do?"

"No, not really. _Hear _through walls, yes. Even when they're supposed to be soundproof, which always troubled me a little, because she can hear pretty much everything I say, and-" he cleared his throat and got back on track. "But no, not so much with the walking through walls thing…"

Silence descended in the control room. A few beeps here and there, but nothing loud enough to warrant distraction.

"The tremors…"

The Doctor stood to his full height, running his hand through his hair as he walked around, which he always found helped him when he was trying to think.

"What about them?"

"They're gone. There was one when McKenzie was up here, and then… nothing. Gone."

"Which means…?"

"Which _means…_ whatever was creating the tremors doesn't feel the need anymore. I mean, I thought it was the drilling down below that was causing it, destabilising the ground up above as well, ever since we arrived, but… now McKenzie's gone down there with Donna, and everything's peaceful." He frowned. "But what did they want?"

"Maybe McKenzie? You said he had steam coming from his eyes."

"Yes, but if…" He growled and smacked the back of his head. "It's right here in my head, Robert, right at the back, but it doesn't want to come out. All right all right, let's think about it. If they wanted McKenzie, they had the power to just take him there and then from the cave. So it's not _just _McKenzie, so it must be Donna. Why take Donna? I mean, she's not important or clever… blimey, this is sounding familiar…"

"She seemed quite nice."

"What?"

"Donna. She seemed quite nice. Sympathetic. Not like pretty much everyone else here. Tharsis, Venn… even the miners treat me like crap. It was pretty nice to have someone pay attention to me and not be condescending or pretend I wasn't there."

But the Time Lord wasn't taking in a word of it after 'sympathetic'. Something about the word has hit upon something.

"Sympathetic, sympathetic… is that all they want? Someone to listen to them?" He nodded his head from side to side, letting the idea bounce around. "Maybe McKenzie's just the messenger. An unwilling ambassador…" He blinked, cleared his throat and looked to Robert. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"Uh… nothing, it's fine. What are you going to do?"

The Doctor sighed and slipped his glasses away. Folding his arms and leaning against a guardrail that ran around the holo-table in the centre of the control room, the Doctor thoughtfully chewed his cheek.

"Hmm… not sure. I mean, Donna's all right for now, and she can take care of herself, no question, but… these things… I've got no idea what they're capable of."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Hm? Oh, I suppose. But you do work for the nice Mr Venn, who probably won't be happy about it."

Robert waved a dismissive hand at the notion. "Whatever. I'm a temp, I can find work anywhere."

He could only hold the massive grin back for a few seconds before it broke out over his face. "In that case, Robert Allen, let's go and save Donna Noble."

--

McKenzie's footsteps were annoyingly level as he walked in front of Donna on the uneven, rocky ground. How he was managing to stay so centred and balanced was beyond her; and she was wearing bloody trainers as well; why was she stumbling all over the place like it was her mate Charlotte's birthday do?

With a frown, she wiped yet _another _thick layer of sweat from her forehead. Once more, she considered turning back, and once again decided against it. She had tried that about half a minute ago and McKenzie had promptly turned around and yanked her back in front of him, keeping her on course. She had to assure him she wasn't going to run off, which he barely acknowledged before striding past her as though she were never there in the first place.

"So, McKenzie," she ventured, the first words she had spoken since they had arrived down here, "where are you taking me? Somewhere nice?"

He didn't stop, and continued his slow walk around the corner and towards the drilling laser equipment at the far end of the chamber.

"Be careful…" she warned half-heartedly, the sentence dipping at the end. From the looks of things, 'careful' didn't seem to be high on McKenzie's list of priorities.

Instead, the zombified miner strolled in the most robotic manner he could manage to the wall from which the steam-leak had sprung in the first place. Reaching out, he lightly placed the tips of his fingers on the dark rock. Nothing happened.

Donna, minding her feet as she approached, walked over to McKenzie. "Um… nothing's happening. Tell you what, let's go back up. That sounds nice, yeah?"

She was cut off by the same low humming that had sounded the last time she had been down in this cave. McKenzie let his arm drop and reached over to put it in front of Donna, pushing her back as he walked with her. Steam started to seep through some unseen cracks and holes in the wall of the cave, and Donna resisted the urge to run, trying to do what the Doctor would do in such a situation; think. McKenzie hadn't shown any violent intentions towards her except wanting her to come with him. And if he wanted to kill her he didn't have to bother coming down here and using steam to do it.

So it must be something else. Something that requires her alive and kicking. So, really, there was nothing to worry about.

Yeah, like she believed _that _for a second. She wondered if thinking it through _really _made the Doctor feel better, or if he was always just as scared as she was now.

But she still couldn't bring herself to run, her gaze firmly locked on the slowly rolling cloud. And then it stopped. Not completely, not as though frozen, but still… it didn't come any closer than a few inches in front of McKenzie.

Dust tumbled down from above, floating down in front of Donna and McKenzie. She followed the source up to the top of the cave wall, where, with a suitable gape stretching her features, she watched as a thin crack made it's way down the wall. She could hear rocks crumbling and cracking from behind it, and could see more steam squeezing it's way through. The humming was getting louder, like more singers adding their voices to an already impressive choir.

Finally, the crack reached the ground. More and more of the wall started falling away from the crack, crumbling into smaller pieces as though being disintegrated from the inside.

And then, when there was a big enough gap for, say, a person to slip through, the thunderous rumbling noise stopped, revealing a misty passage between the rock faces. McKenzie wordlessly started walking, and Donna latched onto his arm.

"Wait, you can't. You can't!"

He kept on going, and she tugged harder.

"It'll kill you!"

He suddenly stopped and turned to face her. Blank white eyes bored into hers as he stretched out a hand into the mist-

"Wait-"

-and promptly pulled it out again, unharmed.

"…oh."

His point proven, McKenzie turned and walked inside, completely enveloped by the white cloud in moments. Donna stood around, and had the idea of just legging it. But McKenzie wanted her down here for something, and, damn it, she wanted to find out what was going on. Bloody hell, the Doctor had really made his mark on her. Before she met him, she would have been content to scream and smack the living daylights out of McKenzie and then run for all she was worth.

And now here she was, walking with hands locked by her side into a cloud of living steam. Interesting how life changed you. The mist made her squint, and she waved a hand around to try and move some of it. It was getting hotter. No, not hotter; more closed, humid.

And she _had _to come out wearing bloody jeans.

"McKenzie?" she whispered, although she mentally slapped herself for it afterwards. Why was she whispering?

The mist thinned a little, enough for her to make out a figure a few feet ahead of her walking through a small gap in a rock face on the right. Glancing around but finding nothing but white, she crept inside. As soon as she was through, she _knew _that the passageway had been closed behind her. Turning around, she could find nothing.

Then the mist thinned again, and this time more than just a little. She felt air being pulled from behind her ears and rustling her hair, and watched as the steam was seemingly sucked in towards a single point in front of her. As she watched, she realised where it was going.

McKenzie was breathing it in. And he _wasn't stopping._

Blimey, it was like those Strongbow adverts.

Donna got a better look of the cave in which she now stood. It was roughly the size of the TARDIS control room, tiered platforms of rock giving it the appearance of a very mucky, very natural sauna room. And where the coals would usually go sat a wheelie-bin sized metallic capsule, old and hard and buried halfway in the ground. The word 'ACCELERANT' was printed on the side in thick black letters next to some more lettering that had been smudged by time.

McKenzie stopped his mass gulping of steam, and his head dropped.

Silence.

Slowly, Donna crept up to him, ducking down to try and get a look at his face. His eyes were closed, but she could see steam seeping out.

"McKenzie?" she asked gently. "You there?"

His head whipped up, and she tried to keep her scream down to a brave yelp. It half worked. Agonisingly slowly, his eyes opened, a constant stream of mist rising from his completely blank white eyes.

"Human," he hissed, his voice accompanied by the deep hum she had heard before.

"Yeah, that's me. Human. I'm Donna Noble." She smiled as politely as she could. "And, uh… What's your name?"

"Human," he repeated, pointing to the capsule embedded in the ground behind him.

"Um… right, not… sure what you mean. Did humans make that, you mean?"

He threw his arm around to point at her. "Human!" he screamed, making Donna jump.

She cast an experimental glance back to the gap through which she had come. Filled with steam, which, she was guessing, wasn't about to let her walk through it again. Trying to control herself, she looked back to McKenzie and straightened up.

She made a mental note to remember to kill the Doctor for making her so curious.

--

(A/N: All this thanking your for reviews stuff is beginning to seem redundant, but seriously, thanks for all the feedback. With an absence of _Doctor Who _on the TV at the moment and both the Series Four box set and the Christmas Special quite a while away, it's your reviews that keep my enthusiasm up for this story. So please, keep them coming!)


	6. Differences

-1Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**From the Mist**_

_**Chapter Six: Differences**_

Being the incredibly helpful organisation that they were, NIGHT computers had given the Doctor rather a bit of trouble. Which, considering his skills with any computer, was rather impressive. But being impressed didn't last long, and quickly changed to annoyance and the Doctor thinking some very rude things at the happily bright computer terminal he had accessed in the corridor.

He had been at it for twenty minutes at least before the thing had finally admitted when the night shift began, and that, yes, the lights did indeed go down at that time. The Doctor left it at that, having wanted to know if anyone was on duty in that area but not caring after all the trouble the computer had given him. He wondered if that was what humans thought about their computers. After all, Bill Gates wasn't perfect. The Doctor knew, after all, having discussed his operating system up and down with him. What was it called? Glazed? Something to do with windows.

As it was, the Doctor now found himself waiting around in an observation room just down the hall from the door leading into the mine shaft elevator. Commander Venn had kindly decided to deadlock seal it to anyone but himself, so the basic plan was to wait until someone wanted to go down there and then use his handy-dandy miniature binoculars - which he hadn't used in some time, certainly not in this regeneration - to spy whatever access codes were needed to get inside.

Failing that, he would just charm someone into helping him get inside. Although he might struggle with that. A lot of people didn't seem to like him with this face. Then again, nobody ever seemed to like him with any face. Except number Eight, the Doctor couldn't think of anyone offhand (besides Daleks and other evil creatures) who had hated him with that face. Must have been all the jelly babies and dashing hair.

The Doctor pressed a thumb to the controls and let the door slide open before slowly and cautiously poking his head through. No sign of anyone at the mineshaft door.

"What are you doing?"

He ducked his head at the harsh whisper before berating himself for reacting in such a way. Turning, he found Robert Allen, having tucked himself into the doorway behind him and taken to peeking over his shoulder. The young temp had initially agreed to help out, but had told the Doctor he had to finish his shift first or he wouldn't be able to start filling out the coming week's timesheet. The Doctor had just nodded and said 'oh, that's nice'.

"Well," he whispered back, before realising he didn't need to and clearing his throat authoritatively, "well, I'm waiting for someone to come along and open the door. Then I can use these," he said, slipping out the palm sized binoculars, "to see the access codes."

He looked back to the door, and then back to Robert.

"Wait, _you _don't know the codes, do you?"

"No. I'm a temp."

"So? Donna's a temp, and _she'd_ know."

Robert didn't have an answer for that one, and silently slipped back into the observation room and took a seat beside the rather large window that overlooked the landscape beside the ship. Not that there was much to look at. The Doctor was always one for finding the beauty in everything, but there was only so much you could appreciate about sandy, dry, cracked ground stretching on for miles in every direction before it became tedious. And this was coming from someone who was easily bored at the best of times (he fell to sleep during 'Attack of the Clones').

"You know, I've never been in here," the temp mused quietly.

Coming back from the doorway and letting it slide shut, the Doctor put away his binoculars and rested against the metal wall, crossing his feet. "Oh, never underestimate how useful an observation room can be."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. I mean, you can use it for observing things… and… observing… other things…"

"Not making a good case for observation rooms, Doctor."

"Not really, no."

As though sensing a lull in the conversation, the lights in the room dimmed, replaced by ambient lighting fixtures in the walls themselves, tucked into the corners between the wall and the ceiling.

"Ah," the Doctor said happily, "the night shift."

Robert gazed at him over the back of his chair. "And… what does that mean?"

"It _means- _oh, wait…" The Time Lord put up a quieting hand and pressed his ear to the wall.

"What is-"

The Doctor shushed him vehemently. Scowling, he fished his stethoscope out of his jacket and pressed it to the wall. "Someone… no, two people…"

Looking back to Robert, he put his finger to his lips and edged his hand to the panel beside the door. It slid open wonderfully silently, and the Doctor just barely put his head out. It was Venn and Tamar, walking in almost perfect tandem to the door. The Doctor was mindful of any noises or movements; Tamar could probably hear a pin drop on another planet, so accidentally coughing probably wouldn't do.

They stood in silence as Venn moved to the keypad. The Doctor scrambled for his binoculars, and brought them to his eyes in time to see Venn's backside blocking his view of the keypad. A quiet yet still audible voice also requested a retinal scan, which made the Doctor sigh quietly and slip the binoculars away. Even if he _had _managed to see the right combination, there wasn't any way to change his retinal patterns outside of the Chameleon Arch and regeneration. Neither of which appealed. He scolded himself for being so selfish in the face of Donna's possibly impending death. But then again, Miss Tharsis was liable to lock him out of the ship if he went outside to get to the-

The TARDIS. He smacked himself on the head as the doors to the elevator slammed shut behind Tamar and Venn.

"Oh, Robert Allen, I've been thick. Thick thickety thick."

"What? Did you miss the keypad combination?"

"What? No. Well, yes, but I just realised that it's not important! I can use the TARDIS!"

"The TARDIS."

"Yeah. It's my ship. Parked it outside. I'll just go for a quick walk, lock onto Donna, and Bob. Is. Your. Uncle. Although technically in your case, that would put two Roberts in the family, which would probably get confusing at reunions. That's why I stick with a title. Not many people just go by a title. It's always 'Doctor Something', never just 'the Doctor'. Well, except for me."

"Doctor."

"Yes?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Yes, too right!" He bounced on the spot before launching down the corridor and towards the lift. "Better get outside to the TARDIS!"

"Well, I was just going to say…"

The Doctor stopped on the spot and turned, but kept on hopping to keep the momentum going. Couldn't get all energetic like that and just let it slip away.

"Yes?"

"You won't be able to get outside. Not on the night shift."

He groaned, and his hopping stopped. "Oh, but… why not?"

"Well… it's night. The ship's in lockdown."

"And that happens on NIGHT ships all the time, does it?"

"Well… yeah."

A sigh escaped him, and his hands slipped into his pockets. "I don't know, talk about irony."

"So…" Robert looked from the Doctor to the mineshaft door and back again. "What do you want do?"

Silence was the only response at first, the Doctor deep in thought. Many possibilities ran through his head, thousands of different courses of action, each one fiendishly complex and devious in their own way…

"Not sure," he admitted. "Scrabble?"

--

It had taken awhile (how long, she wasn't sure - her watch had misted over pretty much permanently on the inside, which was _very _annoying), but Donna had come to the conclusion that McKenzie wasn't out to hurt her. Or at least, whatever was using McKenzie's body wasn't out to hurt her. She had seen enough possessions and mystic priestesses and skeletons in spacesuits to know when someone wasn't in control of their body anymore.

But for the most part, he had hadn't been that talkative. He seemed mostly content to stare at her with blank eyes while she tried to decipher what he meant. From where she was sat perched on one of the upper levels, she kind of felt like she was in a small theatre or arty performance area. To be honest, a picture of McKenzie stood next to that weird metal capsule would probably make a fortune as modern art.

"So… was that put here by humans? Is that what you mean?"

McKenzie just stared.

Donna groaned. "Right. You're gonna have to say 'yes' or 'no', because I can't help you otherwise." She smiled. "All right. I'm Donna Noble." When she got no reply, she poked herself in the chest with her hand. "Donna. Noble. My name. That's _my _name. Donna Noble." Slowly, she moved her hand over until it was gesturing at McKenzie.

McKenzie just stared.

"Oh, bloody hell…" she sighed, getting to her feet and pacing. "Um… all right. Human. I'm human."

"Human," he agreed loudly, although it sounded more like he was just saying it for the sake of something _to _say.

"Right. So what are you? Are you human?"

More steam spurted from McKenzie's eyes.

Donna put up her hand quickly. "All right! You're not human, I get that, all right. Blimey, people think _I've _got a temper…"

She stopped, her hand tapping against her chin as she looked past McKenzie and to the capsule buried in the damp ground behind him. Slowly walking down the rocky tiers until she was on the same level as McKenzie, she pointed at it.

"Right. So. McKenzie. Do you mind if I…?"

McKenzie just stared. She was ready to throw up her hands and just wait around for someone to come and find her when the ex-miner (and ex-human, come to think of it) simply took a step back.

With a cautious eye on the literally fuming man, Donna walked to the capsule and crouched beside it. Even close like this, the only word she could make out was 'ACCELERANT'. But what kind of accelerant? There was a word before it, but it had long since faded away. Honestly, 'ACCELERANT' was in pretty bad shape, too. Which meant that it was old. How old, Donna couldn't tell. The Doctor would probably be able to find out just from the smell of it, but old human Donna Noble with her boring normal nose? Not a chance.

"What is this? Do you know?"

"Human."

Donna sighed, exasperated. "You can't just keep saying 'human'!"

An angry finger jabbed towards the capsule. "Human!"

"What? What does that mean? 'Human'? What? Was it _made _by humans, or-"

The finger suddenly swung around to point in her face.

"Is that it? It was made by humans?"

Suddenly, McKenzie looked like he was about to throw up. Or at least spit something nasty out. Finally, after a long struggle that made Donna back up quite a bit, he blurted out a guttural 'yes'.

"Yes…" he repeated. "Human… create."

"All right, okay," Donna said, suddenly enthused by the leap forward in communication. Two words just added to the old vocabulary. She could work with that. "So it was made by humans. What does it do? Do you know? It says accelerant on the side. Want kind of accelerant?"

The bombardment of questions seemed to be causing McKenzie some discomfort, so Donna sighed and smiled.

"Sorry. I forget some people aren't used to English." She frowned, realising that the TARDIS should be translating whatever she said to the… thing inside McKenzie. In that, case, they understood every word, they just struggled to use McKenzie's body to reply properly. Watching McKenzie, she saw that he was struggling to speak. It wasn't about understanding; it was about Donna shutting her gob fast enough for McKenzie to reply.

Oh, the 'I told you so' look the Doctor would give her now. Not that he was guiltless in the 'never shutting up' department.

"Us."

"What?"

"Us."

"Sorry, I…" she shook her head. "What do you mean?"

He pointed to the capsule. Or, more precisely, the word on the capsule. "Us."

A frown creased her forehead. "It's… it's an accelerant for _you_?"

"Yes."

"But," she laughed humourlessly, "how? I mean… why? What would that do? I mean… you're steam."

McKenzie seemed to struggle with an 'n', and, for a single heartbreaking moment, Donna was reminded of Lee. God, that stutter used to make her heart skip a beat. It always happened when he was excited and thrilled.

He stopped, and Donna looked at him curiously. Tilting his head like an inquisitive animal, he studied her with an unnervingly constant stare before blurting out another word. Something she really hadn't expected to hear.

"Sorry."

Her frown deepened. "What for?"

"For… loss."

Donna's mouth opened into a gape. "You…" she tapped a finger against her temple. "You can read my mind?"

"Yes. N-" he struggled again. "_Not_ voluntary."

"Too right it wasn't voluntary! I don't recall saying you could-" she stopped herself. "Oh. You meant not voluntary for _you_."

"Yes."

"Ah. Sorry." She smiled. "And… thank you."

An amicable silence (as amicable a silence as a steam possessed man could provide) settled between them, and Donna realised for the first time that she couldn't hear any noise. None whatsoever. No humming, no drilling, no distant rumbling, nothing. It was nice and unnerving at the same time.

"What are you, then? You're not steam, obviously."

"No."

"So?"

"K-" for the first time since they had arrived, McKenzie's face showed some emotion; a look of frustration at having to wrap his mouth around yet another word.

"Krell."

"Brill?"

"_Krell_."

"But… that's the name of the planet."

"Yes."

"So you're the natives?"

"Yes."

The Doctor hadn't mentioned any natives. True, he had been far too busy annoying people all over the ship to be bothered telling her much more about the planet, but she had just assumed that it was uninhabited.

Assumptions were very dangerous things, she was finding.

"Right then. You're the natives. You live here. Then this accelerant comes along… an accelerant for _you_, _from_ humans, and… then what? What happens then?"

McKenzie seemed ready to reply when he froze with his mouth half-open. Donna thought he was just struggling with another word, but the scowl that steadily knotted his features changed that quickly.

"More."

"'More'? More what?"

"More… approach. Attack!"

"What? Wait, no! That could be a friend of mine!"

But he was gone. Spreading his arms out, McKenzie threw his head up into the air, his roar echoing through the cave. It merged with a steadily building hum that came from seemingly everywhere, and Donna had to cover her ears from the noise. She took a few steps back to be safe, as well. No sense being stupid about it.

"Attack!"

Donna prayed that just this once, the Doctor wasn't coming to her rescue. She doubted whether even he could talk his way out been scalded to death by a cloud of angry alien steam.

--

The Doctor had decided the 53rd century was a boring place. When the young people of the era didn't know how to play Jacks, there something inherently wrong with the universe. And worse still, it was down to something even the TARDIS couldn't cure; laziness. Why play Jacks when you've got virtual… well, virtual everything, from fishing to playing cards. Which he thought defeated the purpose a little.

Nevertheless, here he was, sat opposite Robert Allen in the observation room, trying to teach him how to play Jacks. It was completely lost on the boy to the point where the Doctor began to wonder just how good a temp Robert was.

But before he could channel too much of his sixth self and bark orders at the boy for being so dim, something perked his ears yet again, and he was at the door of the observation room.

"What is it?"

"People. _Lots _of-" Rather than continue, he simply pressed the button next to the door. It slid open silently, revealing the shuffling and screams coming from the far side of the corridor by the mineshaft lift.

The Doctor stepped out and moved at pace towards them. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Venn snapped immediately, although the statement was interrupted by a scream from Hunter, who lay below him.

Racing over and coming to a crouch beside him, the Doctor found the same burns that he had from McKenzie. No, scratch that… not _exactly _the same… there was something-

"Allen!" Venn roared. "Get down here and help!"

"Why, I though nothing was going on?" The Doctor said, slipping on his glasses as he inspected Hunter's wounds further. "Hunter, Hunter. I'm going to help you up, but-"

The miner just struggled against him, and the Doctor tried his best to hold him down. As he looked up to Venn, he spotted Spade's unconscious form behind the good Commander.

"Oh, and what happened to him?" he asked loudly, his voice going up an exasperated octave.

"Nothing."

"There's a lot of nothing going on down, there, I have to say. All right, _you," _he said, nodding to Venn, "_not _you," he added, looking at Tamar, _"_help me with Hunter. Robert, are you all right to carry Spade?"

The temp just stared blankly.

"Robert, I'm going to need your help right now!" He said, already lifting Hunter under his arms while Venn grabbed his legs.

Robert nodded distractedly before edging around them (especially wary of Tamar's still form) and getting to Spade, wrapping the miner's arm over his shoulders and grasping him by the waist.

"Can you see any wounds?"

"No, nothing."

Venn glared at the Doctor accusingly. "There, you see? Nothing."

"Well he didn't just fall to sleep, did he?" the Doctor threw back, although his retort was almost overshadowed by Hunter's agonised screaming. "Look, enough, let's just get him to the medical bay, shall we?"

For once, the Commander just nodded in a mature, capable manner, before shooting a glare at Tamar. "You. Go to my quarters, and wait there. If you don't, I'll know."

Tamar just stared at him, clearly enjoying the screams that erupted from Hunter while they waited for his reply.

"Of course," he said smoothly.

Although he was loathe to leave such a creature by himself, the Doctor helped Venn carry Hunter to the lift, even though he had little idea which buttons he needed to press. But what else were irritatingly powerful and smug Commanders for? It was a bit of a squeeze inside the elevator with three people standing upright and the other two either limp or struggling, but the interior was _just _big enough to compensate them.

The medical bay was only a few floors up (as the Doctor remembered from his trip up there before), with the bay itself three doors down the corridor as they emerged.

Once inside, the Doctor administered a sedative, and Hunter finally calmed down, his screams fading into laboured breathing. The Doctor looked him over as Robert entered with Spade draped over his shoulder, who was obviously struggling judging from the grunts coming from his direction.

What was it about these burns? It was easy enough to assume it was the steam that caused them, but there was something different about them that made the Doctor uneasy. And when the Doctor was uneasy, things tended to either explode and/or die. _Not _something he looked forward to when he visited a place.

"Will he live?"

The clinical manner in which Venn spoke the words rubbed the Doctor the wrong way. "Just barely," he shot back, not bothering with any more words. Venn wasn't likely to suddenly confess anything now.

Instead, he busied himself with making his way around Hunter's still form and over to Spade's bed, which Robert had all but fallen into with him in an effort to lay him down. With a helpful smile, the Doctor lifted the miner's legs and put them on the bed.

"I'll be in the control room."

He heard the door slide open, and watched Venn's form disappear through the door.

"After you've checked on Tamar, I hope!" he shouted, going for sarcastically helpful but ending up with accusatory. Ah well. Both worked in this situation.

"Um, Doctor?"

The Time Lord whirled around, and was by Robert's side in an instant, staring down at Spade's still form. "What is it?"

"He just groaned."

"Did he? I didn't hear-"

Spade groaned.

The Doctor nodded. "Oh. All right then. Well spotted, Robert," he said, rewarding him with a slap on the back before leaning over the recovering miner.

"Spade? Spade, can you hear me?"

"Ugh…"

"Yeah, unconsciousness. Not nice, is it?"

"…no… s'not."

A grin grew on the Doctor's face, which he threw up to Robert, but he just blinked, looking very confused.

"So, Spade, my good man. One, are you all right, and B- no, wait… _two_, what happened down there?"

Spade winced, as though the effort of remembering was giving him a headache. Slowly, he heaved himself up into a sitting position, hand tentatively poking at the back of his head.

"Someone hit me…"

"Really?" the Doctor asked in a surprised tone, looking to Robert in a manner that said he wasn't surprised at all. "So it wasn't the steam then?"

The miner scowled at him. "What steam?"

Taking a pensive breath, the Doctor nodded over to Hunter's still form. Spade only took one glance in his direction before practically vaulting off his own bed and coming to halt beside Hunter's.

"Hunter? Hunter, can you hear me?" His gaze whipped around to the Doctor. "Is he all right?"

"For the moment. I gave him a sedative, but it's down to the medical computers now. You don't have much medical equipment here."

He didn't seem to take it in, but he nodded anyway, slowly taking his eyes back to Hunter.

"Spade," the Doctor prodded gently, walking around the bed and over the grieving miner, "I'm sorry, but you have _really _got to tell me what happened down there."

Realisation struck, and Spade looked around the bay. "Where's McKenzie?"

"You don't know?"

The stony glare that settled on him gave him his answer. "Know _what_?"

"McKenzie. He got up and went down into the mines. Didn't Venn tell you?"

"No." Spade leant forward, resting forward against the side of Hunter's bed. "He didn't."

For a moment, the Doctor just let that sink in. This kind of emotional exploitation wasn't something he ever particularly enjoyed, but he seemed cursed with a gift for it.

"Look, Spade. Venn isn't going to tell you anything. If you help me, you'll get answers."

"I don't want answers, I want-!" he stopped himself and sighed. "Sorry."

"Just… tell me what happened."

"Venn came to our quarters-"

"'_Our _quarters'?" Robert interjected. "Were you and he-?"

"How is that any of your business?" the miner spat, and the Doctor sent Robert a glare with similar connotations. What relevance was it who was in a relationship with who? Curiosity was one thing, but that bordered on the gossipy nonsense that the Doctor detested in humankind.

After sufficiently gathering himself, Spade continued. "Venn told us to suit up and come down with him and some other guy down to the mines. Said we had one more piece of work to do, and we would get paid triple."

"Did you ask him what it was?"

"Just some drilling, he said. We didn't care. Triple pay? Who would?" He didn't wait for a reply before going on. "So we went down, and we got to the cave where we had blasted through. But as soon as we started up the laser drill…" His hand went to the back of his head, and he winced. "Someone hit me. Next thing I know, I'm waking up with you two staring down on me."

"Not the nicest thing to wake up to, I'll admit," the Doctor murmured, pulling on his ear. "So you started up the laser-"

His voice faded to nothing as he looked down at the burns covering Hunter's body. "LASER!" he yelled, making both Spade and Robert jump a little.

"Those aren't burns from being scalded… those are laser burns."

Spade seemed to understand, his face contorting into an expression of his rage. Without another word, he stormed out of the med bay.

"Spade… Spade!" The Doctor groaned, and quickly set off after him.

"Doctor!"

He stopped with a jolt and whirled around in the doorway to look at Robert. "What?"

"What… what do you mean, laser burns? What does that mean?"

"It means he wasn't attacked by steam. Someone either shot him or threw him into the path of the laser drill. Either way, Spade's going to be displeased with whoever did it. So, if you don't mind?"

The Doctor shot out again.

"Doctor!"

"What?" he barked, yanking himself back inside the med bay. "What is it now?"

"There's something in the walls."

His face tightened into a confused frown. "What?"

"The walls," the young temp said quietly, pointing all around him. "Can't you hear it?"

He could. Something growing beyond the walls, building in pressure and size. And that wasn't all he could hear. The humming. That humming was _very_ familiar.

Steam burst in through the corners of the room, and Robert ran for the door.

"Outoutoutout!"

Robert hurled himself through the doorway, and the Doctor glanced inside to see Hunter consumed by the steam. And not just consumed; he almost appeared to be _absorbed _by it, his body evaporating into the mist swirling angrily around the room. The cloud did not halt in it's approach, and the Doctor closed the door before he and Robert ran for the lift. They slammed against the doors when they refused to open.

"Come on, come on…"

Robert's quiet pleas weren't being answered. The steam began seeping through the door of the medical bay just down the corridor. It spread out in both directions, expanding without thinning itself; it was almost as though it had an unlimited supply behind it. The Doctor removed his steamed glasses and looked into the billowing cloud. There it was again, that blurriness. As though something were wrong with his eyes (even though that was impossible)…

His eyes twitched into an altogether wider shape as it hit him. Not something wrong with his eyes… something wrong with the steam…

"Got it!"

The Doctor turned and saw Robert disappear into the lift. He darted inside, and the doors closed.

"The control room, now!"

Luckily elevators in the 53rd century were pretty quick on the uptake, and they were shooting up the innards of the ship in no time. If they were in one of those (comparatively) rickety contraptions of late 20th/early 21st century Earth… well, they would no doubt be two more evaporated people Venn could add to the casualty list.

"Why the control room?" his erstwhile companion asked breathlessly.

"I saw some heavy duty containment doors there. It might not keep the steam out for long, but… it'll help."

"That's not very comforting."

"That's all right, I'm not trying to be."

Robert looked a little irritated by the remark, but the Doctor said nothing. Now was not the time to be having arguments over how rude he could be sometimes, especially with someone he wasn't likely to see again. The lift doors opened just down the corridor from the entrance to the secure control room.

That same humming was closing in from outside. Without a word, the Doctor and Robert sprinted down the corridor for the open doors of the control room. As they approached, the Doctor could see Venn tapping away at the holo-table, and, with a loud klaxon, the containment doors began to close. They both increased their pace as the metal blue door moved down like something out of those old adventure movies humans were so fond of.

As they finally reached it, they had to duck underneath to slip inside. Gathered around the holo-table, Miss Tharsis, Tamar, Venn and Spade stared back at them.

"Where's the rest of the crew?"

"Lockdown," Venn said flatly. "You only just managed to get through with that quick journey on the lift."

The Doctor stormed down the stairs. "You mean you've left your entire crew to be killed?"

"Like you left Hunter?"

Spade, who up to this point had looked thoroughly lost, came forward. "You _left him?" _he hissed, fists bunched up by his sides.

"There was nothing I could do."

"And, similarly, there was nothing _I _could do," Venn said. "Better _some _of us survive than none."

"Really?" Tamar asked smoothly, head tilted to the side like a cat playing with a wounded bird. "Nothing you could do, you say?" He stepped forward with eerie smoothness, as though he had no legs. Maybe he had been telling the truth before.

Venn, meanwhile, seemed lost for words, as was everyone else. It seemed as though most of them had never even _seen _Tamar, let along hear him speak. The Doctor only then noticed how tense he was, his shoulders knotting as he waited for Tamar to make a move.

A lightning fast hand snatched up Venn's left wrist, bringing it up for all to see. Whatever Metabolastasis field there had been constricting him, it was certainly gone now, or at least switched off. Reaching out with his other hand, he tore away the sleeve of the grey uniform that covered Venn's arm.

"It seems that you are _ideally _equipped to save those people." He stepped back from the Commander and held out his arms as he retreated to his previous position at Miss Tharsis' side. "Discuss."

The Doctor only then realised what the object wrapped around Venn's wrist was.

"You've got a Vortex Manipulator…"

He reached forward and clasped a hand over his wrist, bringing the device up for him to see more clearly in the gloomy light of the holo-table. Outside, the humming grew louder. But the Doctor was focused on what was in front of him, staring him in the face.

"You're a Time Agent."

--

(A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, people! Keep them coming!)


	7. Understanding

-1Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**From the Mist**_

_**Chapter Seven: Understanding**_

If not for the ominous humming and the sound of metal straining against the coming steam, the silence in the command room would have been awkward. As it was, it just seemed pointless, so the Doctor continued on with his tirade.

"You're a Time Agent?" The Doctor nodded to himself, letting the idea sink in. "A Time Agent." He frowned. "Wait, a _Time Agent? _A Time… _Agent?"_

Venn, meanwhile, had ripped his arm from the Doctor's grasp and taken to standing with his hands behind his back, looking impressively nonplussed that his entire crew appeared ready to kill him in a horrific way.

Except for Tamar, of course. He just seemed to be enjoying the show.

But the Doctor wasn't done yet. He so hated it when humans thought they could butt in and disturb his thought processes like this.

"WaitwaitwaitwaitWAIT!" he cried, silencing fingers up in the air, despite the fact everyone had yet to utter a word. "A Time Agent, right?"

"Yes," Spade groaned through clenched teeth, "I think you've established that."

"All right, but why?" he threw back, looking to Spade but quickly diverting his attention to Venn. "Hmm? Why a Time Agent here? I mean, I just thought you were looking to use those steam creatures as weapons for some seedy company-"

Melissa let out an objectionable noise at her employer being described as a 'seedy company', but rapidly diminished in size when the eyes of the others fell on her.

The Doctor allowed his gaze to remain on Melissa for a few moments longer than anyone else, but gradually dragged them back to the Time Agent. "-but a Time Agent wouldn't be needed for that. No… you must be here for something else. And a Time Agent with some kind of illegal species? Well, you're just trying to make things confusing for everyone by bringing him along. I mean, seriously, what are you two here for? What is so important about that steam?"

The good Commander (if he was a Commander) was keeping tight-lipped.

His camouflaged companion, meanwhile, had no such restraint. "You're half right, Doctor. He is here to use the…" Tamar chuckled in a quiet, condescending way, "…'steam creatures'… as weapons. It's just the methods you-"

He froze, his expression unchanging, staring at the Doctor in a most unnerving way. Slowly sliding to the left, the Doctor realised that Tamar was literally frozen in place. While Miss Tharsis snapped experimental fingers in front of Tamar's unblinking eyes, the Doctor sighed and turned to Venn, his hands still behind his back.

"Would you mind turning off the metabolastasis field?"

Without a word of answer, Venn lethargically blinked his gaze to the Doctor before returning it to some imaginary point on the wall.

The Doctor let out another sigh. "All right, fine." He held out a hand, like a parent to a misbehaving child. "Give me the Vortex Manipulator."

Venn stared at him like he was mad.

The Doctor beckoned with his hand. "Come on. If you're not going to use it right, give it to a responsible adult."

Nothing. Frustration building with every breath, the Doctor shook his outstretched hand.

Still nothing.

"Look, there's a time to be enigmatic and silent and there's a time to do what's sane and rational."

An impossibly loud groan from outside was quickly followed by a similarly loud bang.

The Time Lord's eyes bored into Venn's. "Guess what time it is now?"

Still unblinking and unmoving, Venn remained where he was. The Doctor lunged for the Vortex Manipulator, only to be easily backhanded away by the much larger and stronger Commander. Stumbling back, the Time Lord grabbed onto a guardrail beside him to stop the painful crash onto the metal floor below.

Instinctively, the Commander thrust his arm into the air, above anyone's reach. He said nothing, but his expression had a distinct 'Care to try that again?' look to it.

The Doctor was indeed about to try again when something unexpected happened behind Venn; Spade took a step towards him.

"Give him the Vortex Manipulator."

Venn's head whipped around to look at him. Another clang from outside.

"_What?" _he spat, anger and fear evident.

"Give the Manipulator to the Doctor."

Reaching into his jacket pocket as slowly as he could, the Doctor slipped out the sonic screwdriver and held it down by his leg, hiding it from view. Venn glanced back to him just as the implement was out of sight.

"You're trusting _him _over _me_?"

The look on Spade's face had a certain 'well, duh' quality to it. "Hell yeah, I am. At least he acts like he gives a damn about what's going on around here."

"But you don't know what he is! None of us do!"

"Maybe not, but at least he's acting like he wants to get out of here alive. That makes him human enough for me."

The Doctor kept quiet at _that _little comment, since he was pretty much done adjusting the sonic screwdriver. Thrusting it out into the open and aiming for the leather strap around Venn's wrist, he pressed the button. With the customary whirring, it undid the clasp keeping the device around Venn's pudgy arm. It tumbled down from where his arm stood in the air, dropping into Spade's waiting hand.

With only an alarmed grunt to accompany him, Venn lurched for the Manipulator. Spade easily dodged the clumsy move and tossed the device, piggy-in-the-middle style, to the Doctor. He caught it easily, and considered freeing Tamar for the briefest millisecond. Instead, he searched for any life-forms below the ground.

"One human, underground. That's Donna! Well, hopefully." He grinned and looked up at the rest of the crew. "Back in a bit, keep the kettle on."

And with that, he jammed his thumb down on the relevant button.

He never liked Vortex Manipulators. When he had compared Jack's and the TARDIS to a Space Hopper and a Sports Car respectively, he hadn't been kidding. As a Time Lord, the ability to travel from one era to another was something that felt almost holy and sacred; one of the few remaining vestiges of religion and such nonsense that the Time Lords really practised. Many species considered all the Rassilon stuff tantamount to religion, but it wasn't, not really. That was just history.

But the act of time travel itself… it was larger, grander… an altogether more _awesome_ feat that transcended any other experience in so many ways.

Well, except for Pop Tarts.

And then there was this… _thing._ Vortex Manipulators. A device that let pretty much anyone tear their way through time and space. Anyone could have one. _Anyone_. Criminals, businessmen…

Then again, he couldn't really talk. The TARDIS wasn't exactly _his_, after all. And Vortex Manipulators had saved his life on more than one occasion. But that still didn't mean he had to like them.

The experience of using one wasn't exactly heavenly, either. Being stretched and pulled while still within ones skin was never a fun time. And the heat…

The heat?

"Doctor!"

The Doctor opened his eyes and cricked his neck. And there was Donna Noble, staring helplessly at him from in front of someone else. He frowned as he rubbed his sore neck. The Manipulator said only _one _life sign. Useless.

"Hello again. Feeling all right?"

She shrugged. "Bit hot, steam man shouting at me, metal bin in the ground. What about you?"

"Messed about with a temp, played Jacks, steam trying to kill me, Time Agent, nothing too bad."

"Good."

"Good."

She pointed to the figure in front of her. "This is McKenzie, but the way. Want to have a word?"

Blinking away whatever it was that Vortex Manipulators did to the eyes, the Doctor slowly made his way around the misty figure. Except, as he made his way around, he saw that the blurriness wasn't dissipating. In fact, it seemed concentrated around McKenzie.

"Hello there, big fella," he said, sidling up beside Donna. "I'm the Doctor. We didn't really have a chance to talk before. True, you were unconscious one time and walking like a zombie the next, but still, the point stands that we need to get to know each other better."

At first, there looked to be no reply from the literally steaming McKenzie. Then, raising a hand, he pointed to the metal capsule in the ground in front of them.

"Human."

The Doctor's mouth bobbed open and closed a few times. "Right." He spoke to Donna while keeping his eyes on McKenzie. "Um, is that… all he says, or…?"

"Mostly just that, really. When you try to get him to talk more he just gets angry. I just know that _that_ thing," she said, pointing to the capsule, "is an accelerant for… them."

He scowled and gave her his full attention. "For _them_?"

"Don't look at me like that spaceman, it's him who said it!" She nodded to the metal shape embedded in the ground. "What is it, anyway?"

His gaze whipped around to the metallic shape as he squatted in front of it. "It's-"

He stopped himself as he ran a hand over the surface. "It's old. Older than it should be…"

"What?"

"Well, it looks…" he frowned and pursed his lips. "But it _can't_ be…"

This time Donna scowled, crouching down next to him. "Could you stop being all mysterious and just _tell me?"_

"This thing… is technology from this era. From the 53rd century."

"Okay… and why is that a problem?"

The Doctor tried to slip on his glasses but quickly decided against it when they misted up almost instantly. "Because it's almost a hundred years old."

He could feel the sheer confusion coming from Donna even without looking at her. Fair play, too, considering that he was just as confused.

"But… if it's a hundred years old, how can it be from the 53rd century?"

"_That_, Miss Noble, is the question. So, we've got something that's older than it should be… an accelerant of some kind… and we've got a Time Agent upstairs…"

"A what?"

"Hm? Oh, Venn. He's a Time Agent. Or, at least, he has access to their technology." His eyes flickered just that little bit wider as he stared off into space, his brain joining the dots. "Time travel technology…"

"So Venn sent this back in time?"

"Exactly. But why? And accelerant, what kind of accelerant?" A glance to McKenzie confirmed that he wasn't really in any fit state to answer in-depth questions. He looked to Donna instead. "Did he tell you anything else?"

"Like what?"

"Like… anything. Doesn't have to be useful."

"He said they were called the Krell."

He frowned. "The Krell…" His whole face exploded into life, realisation stretching his already pretty malleable visage as he leapt to his feet. "The Krell, Donna, the Krell!"

"What?"

"The Krell are the natives to this planet."

"But you didn't mention them."

"Well, no, because they're supposed to be on the other side of the planet at this point. But Donna, _they're _the Krell!"

Quietly, and with a slight air of irritation about her, Donna stalked over to the Doctor. "You _do _realise that I have no idea what the Krell are?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Then could you stop shouting and explain all this?"

A little embarrassed about being shouted at in front of a strange new life form, the Doctor glanced over at McKenzie before sheepishly nodding.

"Sorry." He took a breath, put his hands in his pockets, and started over, a little slower - for his own sake as well as Donna's. "Starting around about now, historically, the Krell were supposed to start evolving. Before, they were bipeds like you and me, just a little bit more blue. But over the course of about a thousand years, they're supposed to become sentient, gaseous life forms."

"Yeah, but… they're gaseous now."

He nodded gravely, eyes firmly on McKenzie. "I know… and a thousand years too early. I- OH!" he yelled, making Donna jump.

"The blurriness! Donna, the blurriness! _That's _why it's only around the Krell!"

She sighed. "Still lost, Doctor."

"Right, sorry, um… do you remember in Pompeii, when I told you about how some things are changeable and others aren't? And that Time Lords can sense these things?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Well, that's what I've been seeing. A changed timeline around the Krell. I mean, in the history that I remember they never left the planet once they evolved - how could they, they're gas - and that must be why this whole planet isn't blurry to me."

"Is that how you usually see things that have changed, then? Blurred vision?"

"To be honest, I haven't often come across changed events _after _the fact, at least, not since the Time Lords died. Usually I'm there making the change or trying to stop it, so I'm part of the timeline, part of the chain of events. But with this, coming in as an observer almost a century after the change was made…" He blew out a relieved breath. "Blimey, and I thought I was seriously going to need glasses. Or contact lenses! Imagine me putting in contact lenses every morning!"

"You could get laser surgery."

"Get out of it. Lasers in my eyes? No thank you."

Donna's eyes flickered over to McKenzie, and she cleared her throat. "So, this thing made them steam a thousand years before they were supposed to?"

Getting back to reality, the Doctor nodded. "That's what the accelerant was for. Whoever sent it back from the 53rd century must have used the Vortex Manipulator, seen the gaseous Krell in the future and decided that they wanted it done quicker." His mouth curled in distaste. "But why? Why would someone want them as gas?"

"Weapons?"

Both the Doctor and McKenzie looked at Donna.

"What?"

"Weapons. I'm just saying, this steam can get through rock, possess people-"

The Doctor nodded. "Evaporate living tissue, wear their way through metals… the Night Foundation certainly won't change much by the time they next see me…"

"What?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing. But how are they planning to use them? I mean, obviously the Krell aren't going to go willingly, and they haven't got anything on the ship that could…" Another idea hit him, another concept, forcing it's way through his head. "Oh. OH! Tamar! That's what Tamar's for! He's there because he can take on the characteristics of other species!"

"Ay? How'd you figure that one out?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense! They couldn't bring the amount of equipment they needed to take the Krell without getting the authorities suspicious, so what do you do? Get a species, no matter how dangerous, that can take on different forms at will! Like a chameleon…" He yelled, leapt up into the air and gave his hands a solid clap. "He's a Krillitane! Tamar's a Krillitane, Donna! There's no other species that could so convincingly take on a human form and still have the adaptagenic matrixes needed for-"

"Oi!"

The Doctor froze, arms held out to Donna in mid-explanation.

"What's a Krillitane?"

"They're a species that pick and choose parts of different races and copy them genetically. Night must have sent Venn here to get samples of the steam and expose Tamar to it. Then he could take on the form at will, they go back to the Night laboratories, and BAM! Instant army of gaseous soldiers. Or whatever it is Night wants them for. Honestly, it's probably just to turn a tidy profit."

"But… I don't get it."

The Doctor was ready to explain again when he realised that Donna's question was directed at McKenzie.

"Why did you attack us?"

"Donna, did you… not just hear what I said? Evil corporation? Using them as weapons?"

"Well, yeah, but what I _mean _is… they didn't know about all that stuff, did they? And Venn and Tamar hadn't even tried doing anything to them when we first went down into the cave. So why did they attack us?"

"That's…" he blinked. "A good point." He looked to McKenzie. "Why _did _you attack?"

His skin looking very much the worse for wear, McKenzie's lips curled in. "P…" His brow quivered from some unseen effort.

"'P'? That's it?"

"No, Doctor…"

His attention turned to Donna.

"He… he sort of has trouble with words. Just give him a minute."

"Oh," he whispered, casting his gaze on McKenzie again. "Sorry."

The miner didn't seem to notice. "P… provoked. We are still… provoked."

The Doctor exchanged a glance with his companion. "Provoked?" His mouth hung open in understanding. "Oh, I _see_…"

"What?"

"The Krell, even before they evolved, were highly empathic beings. Once they became gaseous this only increased until they were basically one huge, living organism…" He rolled different terms around in his head before choosing one. "A hive mind."

"Like the Borg?"

"Yeah, like-" he frowned. "How do you know the Borg?"

"Boyfriend of mine liked Star Trek."

"That must have lasted long, knowing you."

"Watch it."

"ANYway," he continued, "since the Krell's evolution was forced on them at such an accelerated rate, their empathic abilities were amplified too fast for them to adapt."

"So…"

"_So…_ there's someone upstairs who is having less than calm thoughts, which is having an effect on the Krell. So really, it's time to stop the chatting and get back up there."

"What about him?" Donna asked, looking to McKenzie.

"He's… not human anymore, Donna. He's not even alive. They're just using his form to communicate." After a pause to let it sink in, he spoke again, gently. "We have to go."

He brought the Vortex Manipulator up and set it for the return trip back up into the bridge of the ship. Donna looked unsure, so he nodded vehemently for her to grab onto the wristwatch sized device. She did so, and he turned to McKenzie.

"I'm sorry for what's been done to you. I can't undo what these people have done, but I can get them away and stop anyone else from coming here. You'll be able to live the rest of your life in peace. But we'll need you to stop attacking us for a few minutes, just so we can get things sorted out. "

For the longest time, McKenzie said nothing. Finally, his lips parted, and a whispered voice croaked forth.

"Will… try. Thank… you."

The Doctor nodded and looked to Donna, who gave her own little nod along with a brave smile to show that she was ready. She looked back to McKenzie as the Doctor pressed the button to return them to the ship.

"Bye."

And then, with that familiar tearing feeling like you were being pulled inside out and then put back to together again, the pair reappeared on the bridge of the ship. Everyone had remained where they were for all intents and purposes, with the exception of Venn, who had taken to sitting despondently on some steps like a scolded child.

"Oh, well, that's a bit boring, isn't it? I thought you'd at least be doing something _interesting _while I was away."

A groan from beside him had him turning into the quickly falling Donna, clutching her head. Ah. He forgot that some people aren't well suited to time travel without a capsule.

"S'all right… just need a… pie with… hairbrush."

The Doctor nodded, helping her down slowly. "Yep, sure, all right… just lie down, there we go…"

"She okay?" Spade asked from across the room, still not moving from his position beside Venn. It seemed that even with him sitting down, Spade didn't trust the Commander by himself.

"Yeah, she'll be fine," the Doctor replied, smiling at how serene Donna looked. "Just a bit of time transition dizziness, happens to the best of us. Should wear off in a few minutes. Anyway," he said, bursting up into a standing position. _"Someone _here needs to have some serious therapy, or at least take up jogging or boxing. Something to work off the old rage."

Everyone looked at everyone else, exchanging worried glances and perplexed shrugs. Except Tamar, of course, who was still frozen staring at the other side of the room. The Doctor once more considered deactivating the metabolastasis field.

_Nah_.

"What are you talking about?" Tharsis sighed, some of her earlier demeanour shining through despite the circumstances.

"Well, it's quite interesting, really. Amazing what a chat with a sentient gaseous life form possessed miner will get you. It _seems,_" he said slowly, jutting out his lower lip like a sulking teenager, "that Commander Venn here sent an accelerant back in time that made the Krell evolve about a thousand years before they were supposed to."

Only Venn seemed to have a clue what he was talking about, and seemed fairly panicked by what the Doctor was disclosing. The expression only serving to make the Doctor happier, and the Time Lord continued on, hands in pockets as he wandered about the room.

"And it also _seems _that Tamar was going to be used as a sort of carrier for the Krell so that the Night Foundation could use it for, what, Venn? Money? Weapons? Doesn't matter, the point is, we're stuck now. But here's the interesting thing," he continued, moving onto Spade. "They're being provoked. Because you see, the Krell are highly empathic, and now that they're in the presence of other life forms such as ourselves… they're easily influenced by, say… negative emotions like anger, revenge, that sort of thing. So!"

He leapt away from Spade and over to Tharsis, bypassing Robert altogether. "Who here needs some anger management? Who could do with dealing with some parent issues? Let's play, the Weakest Link!"

Slipping on his glasses while he sung out the relevant theme tune, the Doctor perched them on the end of his nose, inspecting each person as he walked around the room.

"Now, you'd _think_ that Tamar would be the obvious suspect. Another species, violent, murderous, being used for another's gain… but no. For you see, ladies and gentlemen, Tamar is a Krillitane. And among other things, Krillitanes are highly resistant to telepathy, and, you guessed it, creatures with empathic abilities. So while Tamar could be feeling more frustrated and violent than a Dalek without an eyestalk, there's _no way _the Krell could be picking it up from him."

He whirled on his heel so he was looking at the rest of the crew, the frozen Tamar behind him.

"So! Who does that leave? Miss Tharsis? No, you're a bit too uptight for the kind of emotions we're talking about here."

She seemed ready to protest, but kept schtum when she realised the Doctor had just exonerated her from any wrong-doing.

"So Spade, perhaps? Again, no. While you _are _confused and angry about what happened to your friends… now you're just sad at what happened to them. And, _somehow_, the Krell out there don't seem sad."

Hands firmly lodged in pockets, he walked around the offline holo table and to Venn, who glared up at him with unabashed anger.

"Venn, then? Oh, I like that. Venn then. Venn then. Anyway. As much as you're glaring poison tipped flaming explosive arrows with acid at me, I don't think you're the one. You're a military man, or at least you were. I can tell that much from how you walk and talk. So you'd have a tighter reign on your emotions, frankly."

Sighing, he turned to the only suspect left.

"Which leaves us with Robert."

Everyone stared at the temp, Tharsis backing away from him a few steps. He looked around, exasperated.

"What? You can't be… I mean… what about you? And Donna?"

"Well, the Krell chose Donna as someone to talk to. They're not likely to do that if she's making them perform emotional back flips. And me, well… look at me. I'm many things, but is hopelessly enraged and angry really one of them?"

Silence reigned supreme over the command centre. Venn slowly rose to his feet beside the Doctor, disbelief written all over him.

"But it can't be him. He's just a… temp."

_That _seemed to do the trick. Robert's eye twitched a little as a smile broke onto his face.

"Just a temp. Just a temp? Look at how afraid you are all of a sudden! If I was just a temp, would _you _be backing away right now?" he shouted to Spade. "Would _you_ be staring at me like I was some lunatic?" he asked, glaring at the Doctor.

Robert's gaze whipped around until he was sending a piercing stare right into Miss Tharsis. "And you… I lived and grovelled and worked all the time for you. And it was always just 'fine, whatever' and 'go away, Allen'."

Venn nudged the Doctor and nodded to the sealed metal door behind Robert. A slow trickle of steam had started to make it's way through.

Robert continued on regardless. "But how are you feeling now, huh? Do you want to tell me you're too busy now? Go ahead. What's the difference?"

Clearing his throat, the Doctor stepped forward. "Um, Robert?"

"Oh, suddenly I'm important enough to take notice of, is that it? Before I was just nothing! A big fat nothing!"

"Robert."

"Well, now you're going to pay attention! I'm not taking anymore of this-"

"Robert!"

"What? What the hell do you want?"

"There's… steam coming out of your ears."

He scowled incredulously before the meaning of the Doctor's words struck him. Turning, he saw the cloud of steam just an instant before two tendrils dove into his head through the ears, his entire body melting away into the mist from the head down.

"Away, now!" the Doctor screamed at Tharsis, releasing the metabolastasis field on Tamar as he did so. The Krillitane blinked once before running to the other side of the command centre. Filling out the half of the room they had just vacated, the cloud started to hum, becoming louder and louder as more steam entered. Then, suddenly, a metal barrier slammed down from the roof, clanging loudly against the ground.

Impressed, the Doctor looked to Venn, who had surreptitiously activated the wall via a small panel in the wall.

"Containment, good. But oh, this is bad."

"You think?" Spade yelled. Miss Tharsis winced at the volume of the outburst, but the Doctor just nodded lightly.

"Worse than you think. Now that Robert's been absorbed the Krell, that means his psyche is becoming _part _of them. They're going to become more aggressive." He whipped his gaze over to Venn. "How did they get in?"

He scowled. "What?"

"The Krell. How could they have found their way into the ship?"

"I don't know, probably through one of the…" he stopped and stared into the metal barrier between them and the clouds. "The air recycling tanks…"

The Doctor nodded, chewing the inside of his cheek in thought. "Right then. Can you find out which one?"

"With that, I can," he said, pointing to the Vortex Manipulator.

Spade came forward, flanking the Doctor. "You've got to be kidding. You think we're going to trust you to stick around here and-"

"Where the hell could I go, Spade? This thing is everywhere!"

That seemed to quell any arguments Spade could come up with, though the Doctor doubted his feelings for Venn had been resolved. After only a brief moment of consideration, the Doctor handed over the Manipulator.

With a nod of thanks, Venn strapped it back on his wrist and tapped away on the keypad. "Air recycler B."

"Right," the Doctor nodded. "So we vent all the atmosphere from the ship, switch to air recycler A."

"What good would that do? It would just vent them out of the ship."

"Yes, but it would give us enough time to get down below and get to my ship. By the time the Krell have managed to get inside _this_ ship, we should already have a big enough head start."

"That's ridiculous."

The Doctor shrugged and walked away. "Oh, well then, since you've got a better idea…"

The humming grew louder from the other side of the containment wall.

Sweat gathered on Venn's forehead.

"Fine," he muttered, getting to work quickly on the Manipulator.

As the Doctor grinned, Donna groaned something behind him that would have offended everyone in the room if not for the hum of the Krell drowning it out.

"What's… Doctor?"

He crouched down beside her. "All right, milady? Shine your shoes, guv'nor?"

Donna's face scrunched up. "Oh, bloody hell. I just have to wake up to you in my face, don't I…?"

Grinning inanely, the Doctor pulled the still slightly dazed woman to her feet.

"Thanks. What's going on?"

The Doctor took a breath. "Well… it's a funny story really…"

Venn barged through them and to the holo-table. "Right, I'm going to flush the air out in fifteen seconds. I recommend you all exhale. There will be a slight power outage after we're done; the system isn't used to flushing out the whole ship."

A frown wrinkling her forehead, Donna looked to the Doctor. "Air? Exhale?"

The Time Lord took a deep breath. "Yeah, we're blasting out all the air and the Krell with it so they don't absorb us like they did with Robert Allen who was the one causing all the fuss by the way and now we have to exhale or our heads are going to pop like in 'Total Recall'," he croaked, gasping for air by the end.

Donna stared at him. "'Total Recall'?"

With a panicky gesture of his hands, the Doctor got her to exhale as well. She was just about finished when the air suddenly completely left the room. The Doctor felt the pressure on his ears, and saw the others immediately clap their hands to theirs in a futile gesture. Except for Tamar, of course. He looked quite amused by the whole thing.

Eventually something on the holo-table beeped, and a thoroughly distressed looking Venn tapped a few controls. With a relieved hiss, air began pumping back into the ship. The Doctor's eyes were firmly on Tamar, who was now engaged in a rather intense staring match with Miss Tharsis, who stood beside him. Although this wasn't the kind of challenging staring that the Doctor often engaged in with rivals and enemies. No, this was something different. Almost fond…

The lights went out.

His ears still recovering from the pressure change, the Doctor just barely made out some shuffling coming from Tamar and Miss Tharsis' direction.

He _really _hoped they weren't doing what he thought they were doing. He blamed humans for giving him such a dirty imagination, he focused his ears a little more.

"Go. Run!" Tharsis hissed.

The Doctor tried to move forward, but just ended up bumping into Donna, whose hearing clearly hadn't returned at all yet. A muffled female grunt was quickly followed by a piercing, quiet snap. Venn yelled out as something collided with him, sending him tumbling into Donna and the Doctor. They all fell roughly to the metal floor, Donna wailing irritably.

The lights came back up, and Tamar was gone.

Miss Tharsis lay dead on the floor, neck twisted in a sickening direction with Tamar's metabolastasis generator bracelet clutched in her expertly polished fingers. Gasping from where he lay beside them, Venn launched himself to his feet and, panicked, clutched at his bare wrist.

"He took the-"

The lights went down to emergency level, the hellish red permeating every corner. Both the Doctor and Venn darted to the holo-table while Donna and Spade crouched beside Tharsis, the latter sliding a hand over her eyes to close them.

"We're on emergency power," Venn said, hands trembling as they worked on the table. "He's put the whole ship into lockdown."

Coming up beside them, Spade looked past Venn and to the Doctor. "So we're not going anywhere."

He shook his head. "Not until we find Tamar. Shame," he sighed. "I usually love a good game of hide and seek."

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(A/N: Well, it had to happen someday. David Tennant's leaving, the awkward bugger. It's like he has no consideration for my fan fiction at all (although he _is _being rather kind to my wallet - those box sets cost quite a bit). Ah, well. Got the Christmas special and four more after that to look forward to. I think that'll make do.

Anyway, review!)


	8. Hunting

-1Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who._

_**From the Mist**_

_**Chapter Eight: Hunting**_

As Venn (fruitlessly) tried accessing yet another file on the borderline dead holo-table, Donna crouched down beside the body of Miss Tharsis. Shifting around her, the Doctor knelt beside his companion, looking for the usual signs of distress.

"Donna?"

She stared down at the body, seemingly mesmerised by the gruesome manner in which the woman's neck had been twisted around, at an angle at odds with the rest of her body.

"What was she doing?"

He stared at her for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"Her. What was she doing?" Piercing blue eyes met his. "Why would she take his bracelet thing off?"

"Metabolastasis."

"Well, whatever," she dismissed quietly, shaking her head.

He sighed and looked down at the metal device. Gently, he reached down and scooped it up, studying it with delicate hands.

"Time Agents, psychotics, lovelorn employees… Does make you wonder if anyone on this ship is who they appear to be."

Spade sniffed loudly as he walked around to them from the metal barrier. "I am."

Both Time Lord and human companion stared at him.

"Well of course _you_ are, Spade," the Doctor enthused. "You're nice!"

Donna smiled, somewhat spurred on by the Doctor's grin. "Yeah. Good old Spade."

A groaning roar from somewhere outside the ship sucked out any goodwill. The Doctor looked around over his head.

"They're everywhere," he murmured. "And with Robert's emotions feeding them, they're going to be very eager beavers."

Something beeped from the holo-table, and the Doctor looked over, impressed that the good Commander Venn could actually get something working.

"They're corroding away the hull," Venn reported grimly, face set in a stern frown. "The engines are as good as dead."

"Although Tamar took them offline anyway, so it doesn't really make much of a difference," the Doctor noted, peering over Venn's shoulder to see the flickering readout on the table. As though to spite him, it faded to nothingness from lack of power before he could read anything.

The Doctor felt someone beside him, and turned to see Spade.

The miner looked to him expectantly. "What about this ship of yours?"

"What? You mean the one that's _outside _while we're stuck in here?"

To his credit, the sarcasm didn't faze the miner. "Yeah, that one. There's got to be a way to break though the hull and get out there before _they _get in _here_."

A smile crept across the Time Lord's wily face. "I do like a good plan. Even if it is a bit vague. But in all fairness, you're not me, so I can't really blame you for not-"

Donna's hastily cleared throat interrupted him, and the Doctor redirected his speech accordingly.

"-anyway," he mumbled, clearing his throat before continuing, "we can't really go anywhere until we're sure Tamar is out of the way."

"Whose to say he's not gone already?" Spade offered. "He's got the Vortex Manipulator, he could just-"

Venn shook his head. "No, he's here. Trust me. Any chance to kill something, he _will _take."

"So," the Doctor said apprehensively. "We know what has to be done, then."

Both Venn and Spade nodded, but Donna simply looked bewildered. She came forward to make an objection, but the Doctor cut her off, shooting her a warning glance as he spoke. He knew what she would say, and usually he would agree with her 99.9999999999999999999%, but in these circumstances? It was time to take a stand, even if it was something that chipped away at his soul every time he took part in it.

He took a deep breath. "Although it's a classic, _classic _movie mistake, splitting up is probably the best way to go. Do you have any weapons on this ship?" Glancing between Venn and Spade, he did nothing to hide the distaste that arose from using the word 'weapons'.

Venn shook his head. "Nothing. We'd never have got clearance to come to this planet with weaponry. The only thing we managed to sneak through was the metabolastasis bracelet, and that was only because-" he stopped himself, gaining a look in his eye that the Doctor knew all too well. The rush of realising something, of understanding some new solution to a problem. They were the moments he lived for.

It was fun and frustrating to see from the other side. "What? What is it?"

"I have a backup module for the metabolastasis field in my office. It's a little more cumbersome, but if we can get it around his neck…"

"A metabolastasis collar? Good, that's good." The Doctor was enjoying the suddenly new concept of not having to kill anyone after all.

He burst back to life. "Right! So, while our good friend Venn here makes his way to his office and gets the spare metabolastasis device, _we _should split up and try to get him cornered if we can."

"And just what the hell are we supposed to do without weapons?" Spade asked.

The Doctor's gaze flickered to Donna, almost ignoring Spade as he answered. "I'm sorry, but it's the best chance we've got. You'll just have to think of something as you go."

"Like what?"

The groan that escaped his throat came from years of experience working with too many dim, dense or otherwise obtuse humans. "I don't know! Improvise! It's what humans do best! Bluff, challenge him to Scrabble or Monopoly, whatever, just find him!"

Spade's expression was somewhere between anger and agreement. But, once again to his credit, the miner nodded silently.

Satisfied that the argument was over, Venn tapped away on the almost completely offline holo-table.

"All right," he announced, "I'm using the last of the emergency power except life support to unlock the doors inside the ship. That should give you access to everything, even if it _will_ be a bit difficult to open them."

"And that means Tamar's got the same freedom as well," the Doctor added. "So be careful. He could be anywhere."

The doors slammed open loudly, and another groan echoed from outside, reverberating through the ship. After a quick glance around the room, Spade nodded grimly and headed for the door.

"Boggle!" the Doctor yelled. "I love a good game of Boggle, me. No-one can say no, try that!"

After one last stare of complete confusion, the miner turned and stalked off into the hellishly lit corridor.

Venn headed for the door, but stopped beside the Doctor. "How will I find you when I've got the metabolastasis collar?"

"Well, I don't know how you'll find _us_, but you should be able to lock onto the Vortex Manipulator if you redirect some of the life support power to the internal sensors. If not… I'm sure Tamar will find you. You're quite popular with him by now."

A twitch of a smile passed over the Commander's face before he stormed out of the room, leaving the Doctor and Donna to themselves. Metal groaned around them, and the Krell hummed violently in the distance.

"Doctor," Donna uttered finally. "Are we going to kill him?"

The Doctor took a deep breath and fiddled absently with the now offline holo-table. "Well, I don't know. If the metabolastasis field works all right, we should be-"

"Doctor."

He sighed and gazed over at Donna, trusting her enough to look her in the eyes as he spoke, to show her what this decision was doing to him.

"Yes."

Sliding her hands into her jeans pockets, the best temp in Chiswick slowly nodded. "All right, then," she whispered. "So long as we're clear."

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Venn had always hated his office. So clean and spotless, the cleaning microbes in the air keeping everything so damn perfect. It made him nervous. He much preferred the workmanlike grey of his old post at the Inner Orbit Complex. But then Mr Night had to come knocking with his irresistible offer.

'_One more chance to stick it to the Time Agency'._

Even though the Time Agency were all but gone in this day and age. Didn't stop them from completely ruining his life from sixty years in the past, however. True, he had committed his crime in that time period and then escaped to the future, but still… that guy needn't have been so rough with him. Although the guy seemed like he was enjoying it. Truth be told, Venn didn't really mind. Tall, dark hair, classy smile…

He shook the thought away as he managed to squeeze himself through the door. With only a quick pause to look around the office (he wasn't used to seeing it so dark), Venn made his way around the desk and to a secure panel in the floor beneath his chair.

It ran on an independent power supply, so his DNA code should still…

A wave of his hand opened the compartment, and Venn reached down and pulled out the collar. He smiled.

_Got you now, Tamar._

No sooner had the thought flashed across his synapses than two light, stealthy hands whipped past his head, latching onto the collar, opening it, and yanking it up around the Commander's neck.

A firm boot to his back sent him sprawling to the floor in front of him. Venn turned over, his neck movements severely inhibited by the large metallic collar.

Tamar stood over him, head tilted in that curious animalistic manner he did so well.

"Oh, _well_. This _is _interesting, isn't it?"

Thick fingers struggled to get underneath the collar to no avail.

The Krillitane above him continued on, bringing up the Vortex Manipulator in his hand. "I _think _I saw you using this enough to figure out which buttons to press."

In the darkness, Venn couldn't see it. But he knew Tamar was smiling as he spoke again.

"And what buttons _not _to press."

Letting out a breath through his nose, Venn forced himself to his feet. He locked his hands behind his back.

"Stop this crap and just do it."

Tamar twitched, and tilted his head again. He smiled, baring his jagged teeth.

"Okay."

He pressed the button, and Venn suddenly felt like he was underwater. His ears thrummed as though under pressure. His body was locked. The panic rose up in him from the unnatural sensation of not being able to move anything, like being trapped in a vice.

His vision, though, was perfect.

And, as he learned when Tamar bit into his neck, he could feel pain every bit as much as he could without the metabolastasis field.

He just couldn't scream.

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The Doctor paced himself as he strolled far too easily around the corner of the corridor. He stopped himself when he realised what he was supposed to be doing. The old 'walk around like you own the place' attitude wasn't going to get him very far when he was hunting down a creature that could hear a pin drop in the middle of an explosion.

He toyed with the idea of fishing out his sonic screwdriver, but decided against it; if he _did _come across Tamar, he didn't want his ace in the hole being revealed so soon. If it _was _an ace in the hole. It could just as easily turn out to be useless.

Bit like most of his plans, then.

He turned another corner and came to an ominously open door. Every door thus far had required a not insignificant amount of jostling and pushing to get open. Light flashed inside, as though something were spinning in front of it like a fan. Stepping inside with his eyes on as much of the room as possible, the Doctor found that it _was _in fact a fan that was causing the flashing effect; he was in the ventilation chamber.

A huge cylindrical chamber spread out in front of him, a walkway leading to the far side, a control panel happily beeping away at the end. Two fans above and below him worked diligently on emergency power to keep the air flowing into the ship, drawing the oxygen from the recycling tanks below the surface of the planet.

There was nowhere obvious for Tamar to hide in here, but the room _was _incredibly dark, only some inexplicable blue hue that shone from above the fan at the top of the chamber affording him any visibility. He considered turning back and waiting for Donna to return from her search on the other side of the deck.

Sighing, he shrugged and stepped inside.

Nothing happened.

The Doctor looked from side to side, then took another step.

Still nothing.

His caution gradually replaced by curiosity, the Doctor's pace picked up speed as he walked along the walkway, getting closer and closer to the control panel controlling the air flow. Upon reaching it, he found nothing strange. No poisonous compounds introduced, no sabotage of any kind.

Then why was the door open?

A metallic thud behind him answered his question.

"Ah," he said loudly, turning on his heel to face the newly landed Tamar. "So it _was _just a trap."

"Yes," Tamar sighed, "regrettably, even my species requires air once in awhile. Turning it off wouldn't have worked out well for me."

The Doctor hummed his agreement, nodding. He slammed his hands in his pockets. "You… _do _know that Venn is still here? And that he has a backup for your little metabolastasis-"

Tamar brought up Venn's severed head.

His eyes locked to the strangely nonplussed looking expression on Venn's face, the Doctor just nodded.

"Ah. Well. That _would _slow down the whole backup metabolastasis plan."

Smiling serenely, Tamar tossed the hand overboard, letting it tumble down into the fan below. His eyes remained on the Doctor as the head hit, the sickening slicing barely audible of the gyrating fan. A moment of silence passed between them, as one waited for the other to make a move. The Doctor's eyes flashed to the Vortex Manipulator in Tamar's other hand.

That was enough for Tamar, it seemed.

The Krillitane lashed out a hand at the Doctor's head, which he just barely managed to duck. A desperate hand tried to get a grip on the Manipulator. Tamar crushed it with a single squeeze of his hand, and grabbed onto the back of the Doctor's jacket with the other.

With so little effort it made the Doctor wonder just how strong the Krillitane was, Tamar tossed the Doctor back against the control panel. The Time Lord slumped to the ground, groaning.

Tamar's light shoes barely made a noise as he stepped forward until he was staring down at the Doctor.

Trying to keep up the 'victim doubled over in agony' thing a little bit longer, the Doctor slowly reached inside his jacket, pulling out the sonic screwdriver. Tamar's lithe fingers grasped him by the scruff of his neck, yanking him up off his feet and into the air. The Doctor brought the screwdriver around, aiming for Tamar's arm.

Far too fast for a Time Lord's reflexes, Tamar grabbed the screwdriver wielding hand. Staring at the tool, he smiled.

"A sonic probe? What were you going to do? Unscrew my eyes?"

Giving the Doctor's hand a painful squeeze, he made the Time Lord relinquish the screwdriver, allowing it to drop to the walkway at his feet.

"Well… you'd be surprised at what a sonic screwdriver can do."

Tamar's hand shifted slightly so that it was firmly clasped around the Doctor's neck. He croaked out a grunt, but that was all he could manage.

The smile on the Krillitane's face wasn't really helping much, either.

"What's the matter? No more little jokes? I had thought after your quiet little threat to me in the holding cells that you would be more of a challenge than this. Where's the fight? The fire?"

He jerked the Doctor about violently. "WHERE IS IT?"

The Doctor suddenly returned his smile, and tried to get out his response. The hand wrapped around his throat interfered with the process somewhat. Tamar tugged him down, bringing his head closer to his.

"What?"

Tamar loosened his grip a little.

An already sizeable Time Lord smile grew even bigger.

"Behind you."

Tamar took in that little nugget of information for a few moments before giving the Doctor the biggest 'do you think I'm an idiot' look the Time Lord had seen in some time. And after travelling with Rose, that was saying something.

Then Tamar heard the hissing noise. Looking down, he saw the great Donna Noble pressing the sonic screwdriver to his back. She appeared a little puzzled as to why the screwdriver was hissing rather than it's usual whirring. The puzzlement was quickly replaced with fear when she saw Tamar's feral glare.

He dropped the Doctor to the ground and turned on her. Bringing up an arm, he made to strike her. She cringed in expectation of the blow.

And then Tamar disappeared, vanishing in a literal puff of smoke.

Or puff of steam, as it were.

Donna stared at the cloud that drifted up into the air before rushing to the Doctor, who was steadily pulling himself to his feet by a guardrail beside him.

"Doctor? You all right?"

He nodded, coughing as he turned to the control panel.

"Where's Spade?" he croaked. He was going to have a sore throat for awhile, he realised. Shame. He liked talking.

"On the floor below us. I ran into him on his way down."

"Go and get him."

"All right, I- wait, what? No! Doctor, what the hell was that?"

"What?"

"That!" she shouted, pointing to the spot where Tamar had once been standing. "With the… hissing and the… the puff of smoke or steam or whatever!"

He sighed and turned to her. "You remember in the caves, when the Krell first came for us?"

"Yeah."

"And I was doing something with the sonic screwdriver?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I was collecting a sample. And I noticed over time that when the Krell touched organic matter, they didn't just evaporate it, they absorbed it, spreading across the entire body, and the way they moved, it became obvious to me that they weren't just _gaseous _in nature, there was something more biological going on; they were multiplying on a cellular level, so when you injected Tamar with some of the Krell, BAM! They spread across him like Marmite on warm toast."

He steadied himself on the control panel and took a breath.

"Okay?"

Donna stared at him, stunned for a moment. Then she just nodded, red hair shaking about all over the place.

"Um… yeah, yeah, fine."

"Then get Spade, move, move!" He clapped his hands for emphasis.

Donna turned and started to leave.

"Oi!"

She stopped. "What?"

"That, give me that," the Doctor shouted, pointing to the sonic screwdriver.

"Oh, right."

She threw it to him, and she was on her way.

It didn't take her long to find Spade. Or it maybe it did, and it just didn't seem like a long time since the Doctor was engrossed in his work trying to fix the crushed Vortex Manipulator on the floor.

The miner, breathless, looked around the ventilation room. "Where's Tamar?"

"Steam," the Doctor said absently, waving the sonic screwdriver up down on the Manipulator.

"Venn?"

"Headless."

Donna did a double take at that. "You what? You didn't tell me that!"

"Right-A!" He shouted, shocking both of his companions. Holding out the precarious looking device in front of them, he nodded for them to place their hands on it.

"Come on, don't have all day."

Slowly, they reached out and grabbed it.

"Right, okay." Rushing around like an excited three year old, he went to the control panel. "Just let me work some magic on the ventilation system…"

"What are you doing?" Spade asked.

"Changing the input valve. Most of these ships come with massive sample collectors. And if you're brilliant, which I am, you can set it to vent the air from the outside atmosphere into the ship."

Even with his back to her, the Doctor could tell Donna was less than pleased with that explanation.

"Wait, so you're sucking the Krell in here?"

"Exactly."

"But _we're in here!"_

"Well, yes, but we won't be for long!"

He pressed one final button before darting back to them. The fans ground to a halt before chugging along in the other direction.

The Doctor tapped away on the Vortex Manipulator. "Right then, here we go."

"Um, Doctor?" Spade said.

"Yeah?"

"This looks pretty broken."

"Yeah."

"Are you sure this is going to work, then?"

The Doctor paused. "No."

He pressed the button, and they disappeared in a flash of folding white light. Suddenly, with a violent push, the Doctor found himself outside, the searing heat from… well, _everywhere_ reminding him of just how pampered those human ships could make one feel. Looking around, he saw the similarly disoriented Donna and Spade stumbling about in the blinding light.

"Doctor?" Donna muttered, reaching out for him desperately.

He grabbed on, smiling. "Ah, you're getting better at this."

Spade groaned. "I… banana…?"

Then he slumped to the ground.

"Looks like Spade isn't," Donna gasped, still breathless from the sudden shock of the heat.

"Come on, help me with him, there's the TARDIS."

The Doctor could see Donna smiling at the sight of the old girl, and something in him was pleased at that. It made him feel that there future was all the more secure. Latching onto an arm each, they heaved Spade up and started running for the blue box.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the rocket steadily bulk out, separate sections of the ship inflating from the inner pressure. By now, Tamar's consciousness would have merged with them. The Doctor could only imagine the kind of rage they were feeling right now. The idea that he had inflicted Tamar's personality on them for the rest of time made him ache.

But in the end, it just joined a long list of other aches in his soul.

_Join the queue, no pushing._

As they approached the TARDIS, the Doctor fumbled for his key.

Something occurred to him.

Reaching out, he snapped his fingers, and the TARDIS doors swung open.

He grinned at Donna. "Oh, go on, my son! How good is that, honestly?"

She just rolled her eyes as they plunged through the doors. The Doctor released Spade almost straight away, sending him tumbling to the floor with Donna.

"Sorry!" he yelled, slamming controls and yanking levers down as he sent the ship hurtling through space and time and simply _away _from the planet Krell.

As the TARDIS engines thrummed to life, the Doctor watched through the monitor as the rocket exploded in a balloon of steaming energy, white metal and debris flying out in all directions.

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The TARDIS made one final rumble before the Doctor opened a comfortingly squeaky door for Spade. None of that 'sliding around so smoothly the door's barely there' guff. Give him a squeaky door in desperate need of oiling any day.

Stepping out, Spade looked around in wonder.

"It's a space station."

"A Til'Hoon space station, to be precise," the Doctor said, strutting out with his hands in pockets towards a large viewport in front of him. "Should eventually be someone along to help you get wherever you want to go."

Spade nodded, smiling, although the expression gradually faded as his gaze fell on the stars ahead of him.

"And what about… everything that just happened? What am I supposed to do?"

Taking a breath, the Doctor nodded his head from side to side, keeping his eyes on the view. "Up to you, I suppose. You could always tell all, expose the NIGHT corporation for every little dirty secret you've learned in the past few days…" His eyes travelled to Spade. "Or you could disappear. But I know for a fact that they're going to keep on doing what they're doing, and nothing anyone does _right now _is going to do much to dissuade them."

"So… I should do nothing, right? I mean, if nothing I say is going to make a difference."

"Ah," the Doctor said loudly. "I didn't say that, did I? I said _right now_. Wait, oh, I don't know… ten years, three months, one week and two days? Should be the right time then."

Looking no better off for having heard that, Spade just nodded. "Uh… sure."

The Doctor thrust out a hand. "Good to meet you, Spade. Thank you."

"You as well. And uh," he nodded to the open door of the TARDIS. "Say thank you to her from me. I said it before I left but… I think she's a little out of it right now."

Chewing the inside of his cheek, the Doctor looked at the TARDIS. "Yeah…" Taking a loud breath with his nose, he smiled. "Right! Got to be off. Things to do, people to annoy, places to annihilate by my very presence… that sort of thing, you know."

Spade smiled. "Sure. See you around."

The Doctor thought about it for a moment. "Um… yeah. Sort of." Hands in pockets, he sauntered back to the TARDIS, closing the door behind him.

A few moments later, the door opened again. "Oh, by the way; make sure it's nine o'clock in the morning."

"What?"

A wink was the only response. "You'll know at the time."

With the supremely confused look on Spade's face to amuse him, the Doctor closed the door and walked back to the controls. Donna sat on the chair on the other side of the console as he sent the TARDIS groaning on it's way. She stared blankly into the central column as it moved, her eyes reflecting the blue-green in an almost haunting way.

"So. On our way then? Allons-y, onwards and upwards, hi-ho silver, away?"

"Hm?"

He sighed and walked around the console. Slowly sliding his hands from his pockets, he sat down next to Donna, folding his arms and crossing his legs. Not yet feeling the courage to look directly at her, he stared at the central column as well.

"For what it's worth… I'm sorry you had to do that."

"I'm not. He deserved it. He killed Tharsis and Venn and was about to kill you… and I had the sonic screwdriver and I saw that you were trying to use it against his arm, so I thought I should do that, and… I wasn't sure what it was going to do to you, so I just… I…" Glassy eyes looked at him. "I didn't…"

He finally looked at her, her teary eyes piercing his own. He wrapped an arm around her. "I know." That was all she needed. Her head fell onto his shoulder, tears staining his jacket.

"I'm sorry."

They both stared at the console for awhile, letting the thrum of the TARDIS surround them.

The Doctor looked down at her. "So… how about we go somewhere a little more relaxing?"

She sniffed. "Yeah. Yeah, all right." A small laugh burst out. "If you know how to do relaxing."

"What do you mean? Of course I can do relaxing. I'm the definition of relaxing, me. Every time I play Pictionary and get the word 'relaxing' I draw a picture of me."

"No. You don't _do _relaxing. It's just not in you."

"Oh is it not, Miss Noble? Well," he shouted, jumping to his feet, "I'll show you! I'll give you the most relaxing time of your life. After I'm done showing you the next place, you'll be so relaxed, you won't want to relax ever again in your entire life!"

"I mean, honestly," he said, leaping around the console, slapping buttons and whirling dials, "it's as if you think I go _looking _for trouble."

With a final yank of a lever, they were away, the TARDIS pulling them along to another time, another place. And somewhere, the Doctor hoped, just that little bit more quieter.

As far as the Doctor was concerned, if anyone deserved it in the entire space-time continuum, it was Donna Noble, the best temp in Chiswick.

One hundred words a minute.

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(A/N: And that's all, folks! Thanks to everyone who's stayed on board for the whole fic. I hope you've enjoyed it.

This has proven fairly popular in the past, so I thought I'd give you a little rundown of the various iterations this story had before I finally came to this. At first, there were two separate stories at work.

The first would have been a modern day Earth story about houses on a street exploding, with the police confounded by the cause. It would have ended up being steam creatures, but instead of the Krell, it was the Krillitane from the episode 'School Reunion', having been evaporated as a result of the explosion at the school. And instead of Tamar, the main villain would have been an initially amnesiac Headmaster Finch, who, since he took on human form permanently in that episode, survived the explosion. Confused and with little to no memories of his Krillitane activities, he would have been placed in an old folks home.

Harry Sullivan would have been involved in the story as a doctor for the care home. The Doctor and Donna would have become embroiled in the plot when they return back to Earth for some relaxation time for Donna.

The second story was very much inspired by the Tom Baker story 'The Ark In Space' (one of my personal favourites), and would have been the equivalent of a murder mystery in a space station, with most of the characters from this story involved. Again, Robert Allen would have ended up being the murderer rather than Tamar.

But as I went along, I couldn't think of a good reason for psycho Tamar to be there, and the first story didn't feel different enough from other modern day set stories I had read and seen. So I put them together, and made something that I feel is different yet still similar enough to evoke memories of old _Who_. Inspired by Steven Moffat's tendency to take the most everyday things and make them terrifying in _Who_, I heard the rumbling that old radiators make and thought that was a pretty ominous noise in itself. Unfortunately I think the move to a space station dulled the impact of such an everyday horror, but I'm mostly happy with how this turned out.

By the way, all the mentions and hints the Doctor has dropped all over the place is referencing another story idea I had midway through writing this, whereby a past incarnation of the Doctor meets Mr Night (head of the NIGHT corporation) _after _the events of this story. It would have been Five or Eight, although I was leaning more towards the latter since a) Eight is far more of a blank slate than Five, and b) I haven't written a solo Doctor story before, and Five was never by himself.

However, I've since come up with an idea for a solo Ten story that I'm far more excited about, so I think I'll be sticking with that. Sort of my own addition to the 2009 specials, set pretty much just after 'Journey's End' and before 'The Next Doctor'. An abundance of other fanfic projects are coming first, though (_Half-Life _abound, for those interested), so it'll probably come sometime next year.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Thanks again, folks!

Don't forget to review!)


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